Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Port-au-Prince (Agenzia Fides) - Haiti, which is the poorest country in Latin America, has experienced growing tensions in recent days, due to the situation of scarcity and high cost of food products. Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Port-au-Prince in protest. Five people are reported dead, as a result of the demonstrations, and hundreds more, wounded or arrested. Protests began April 2 in the southern Haitian city of Les Cayes, however they have now spread to Petit Goave, Jeremie, and the Haitian capital city.
Food prices have risen all over the world, but the problem is worse in Haiti, where 80% of the population has a daily income of less than $2. The cost of products such as rice, beans, fruit, and condensed milk has gone up 50% in the last year and the price of pasta has doubled. Haiti’s extreme conditions of scarcity began last Saturday, in a censure motion that was passed, against Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, implying his removal from government, amidst the riots that left a Nigerian UN soldier dead in Port-au-Prince.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, last week stated that the food crisis is a threat to the fragile security of the Caribbean nation. The UN World Food Program has made an urgent call for donations in order to support its Haitian operations.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is on the look-out for further resources in treating malnutrition in Haiti, while it also expresses its concern for the deteriorating situation of the country. The UNICEF representative in Port-au-Prince, Adriano Gonzalez-Regueral, has stated that there is a tense atmosphere in Haiti and that the schools and stores have remained closed. “The people are afraid to send their children to school. The buses and cars have stopped circulating for lack of fuel, as the little that is left is sold at exuberant costs,” he said. In Haiti, where 85% of the schools are privately run, the only hot meal that many children eat each day, is the meal offered at the school. Thus, when schools close, the main source of food for many is cut off. “And the situation continues, due to insecurity. Many schools have had food supplies stolen, as well as the materials used in the preparation go the students’ meals.”
A group of Jesuits working in Haiti, in various areas, has published a letter denouncing the daily drama that millions of Haitians are living. “The misery of our people today,” the letter reads, “is shown in: the millions of Haitian victims of the constantly soaring prices of basic necessities that they cannot purchase; the shameful and intolerable impoverishment of our urban and rural inhabitants; the increased insecurity, including the reappearance of kidnapping and despair among the youth; and the inability of the majority of our government leaders to face the fundamental problems of the society.”
They also state that the cry of the people is heard today in “thousands of youth who take to the streets to say that they cannot withstand the situation any longer; millions of unemployed, afflicted by starvation; parents that go days without being able to eat; emaciated children that cry each day because they cannot find anything to eat and have no hope of existence.”
A situation that the Jesuits describe as, “intolerable and scandalous situation that threatens to drown our country with new dramas.” Thus, they ask the politicians in charge to quickly make any necessary political decisions and ask the political parties and organizations to collaborate in the search for a solution. They ask all members of civil society to join efforts in finding solutions to the problems and ask the international community to respect its commitments to Haiti, especially the many promises of cooperation they have made in helping the country to emerge from the situation. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 17/4/2008; righe 50, parole 638)
