Haiti in Chaos

 Crushing poverty and widespread violence is causing many Haitians to flee to the Dominican Republic, with which Haiti shares a border, or to the United States.

With no money and no visas, many of them risk their lives by boarding makeshift boats in the hopes of reaching Florida. Many end up in Cuba or the Bahamas, or are stopped at sea by American authorities and returned home. More than 1,200 undocumented migrants were sent back to Haiti in the month of June alone.

Annual inflation reached 20 percent, with economists warning that that it could spike further to 30 percent. 

“We are seeing a significant increase in hunger in the capital and in the south of the country, with Port-au-Prince hit the hardest,” Jean-Martin Bauer, director of the World Food Program, said on Tuesday.

Nearly half Haiti’s 11 million residents already face food shortages, including 1.3 million who are facing a humanitarian emergency, which precedes famine, according to UN calculations.

Meantime, emboldened by police inaction, gangs have become increasingly brazen. At least 155 kidnappings took place in the month of June, compared to 118 in May, according to a report released by the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights.

 Since July 7 gang warfare betwee two rival factions in Cite Soleil, an impoverished and densely populated neighborhood of Port-au-Prince has left at least 89 people dead.

As gunfire crackled in the slums for nearly a week, police, short-staffed and ill-equipped, did not intervene, while international humanitarian organizations struggled to deliver crucial food supplies and provide medical care to the victims.

Thousands of families living in the slums that have sprung up here over the past four decades had no choice but to hide inside their homes, unable to fetch food or water—and, with many houses made of sheet metal, dozens of residents fell victim to stray bullets.

Mumuza Muhindo, head of the local mission of Doctors Without Borders, on Wednesday urged all combatants to allow medics to safely access Brooklyn, an area of Cite Soleil most affected by the violence. He said his colleagues have seen burned and rotting corpses along a road leading to the Brooklyn neighborhood, possibly either gang members killed in the clashes or people trying to flee.

“It’s a real battlefield,” Muhindo said. “It’s impossible to estimate how many people have been killed.”

Week of gang battles kills dozens, deepens fuel crisis in Haiti (france24.com)