Rotting fruit, withered vegetables, empty water jugs and spent gas canisters now stock the stores and stands that serve Haiti\u2019s poor \u2013 a consequence of the unrelenting gang attacks that have paralysed the country for more than a week and left it with dwindling supplies of basic goods. The terrifying violence as anti-government gangs battle police in the streets has crippled the fragile economy and made it extremely difficult for many of the country\u2019s most vulnerable to feed themselves.<\/p>\n
The main port in the capital, Port-au-Prince, closed down, stranding scores of containers full of food and medical supplies at a time when UN officials say half the country\u2019s more than 11 million inhabitants don\u2019t have enough to eat, and 1.4 million are starving. Grocery stores in upscale parts of the capital remain stocked, but their goods are out of reach to most in a country where most people earn less than USD 2 a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are desperate for water,\u201d said Jean Gerald, who was hawking blackened tomatoes and shrivelled scallions on a recent day, confident they would sell quickly because food is so scarce in parts of Port-au-Prince. \u201cBecause of gang violence, people will go hungry.\u201d Next to him were rows of empty jugs he hadn\u2019t been able to refill because the violence had forced one of the country\u2019s main bottled water operators to shut down.<\/p>\n
Gerald noted that he was running out of things to sell because the depot where he usually buys rice, oil, beans, powdered milk and bread had been set on fire and its owner had been kidnapped. As he spoke, gunfire echoed in the distance. Scores of people have been killed and more than 15,000 have been forced from their homes since coordinated gang attacks began on February 29 while Prime Minister Ariel Henry was in Kenya to push for the UN-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country to fight gangs in Haiti. A Kenyan court, however, ruled in January that such a deployment would be unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
As the gangs rampaged through Port-au-Prince, freeing more than 4,000 inmates from the country\u2019s two biggest prisons, attacking its main airport and setting police stations on fire, Haiti\u2019s least powerful have suffered the most. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty bad situation,\u201d said Mike Ballard, intelligence director at Global Guardian, a Virginia-based international security company. \u201cThe gangs are trying to fill a power vacuum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schools, banks and most government agencies remain closed. Gas stations have also shuttered, and the few who can afford to pay USD 9 a gallon \u2013 more than twice the usual rate \u2013 have flocked to the black market. Street vendors are slowly losing their livelihoods and wonder how they\u2019ll feed their families. Michel Jean, 45, sat on Thursday next to the makeshift metal shack where he normally sells rice, beans, milk and toilet paper.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you take a look inside, there\u2019s nothing,\u201d he said, gesturing to a few cans of sardines. \u201cI don\u2019t know how long this is going to last. I\u2019m hoping this crisis is over, and that people can go back to their regular life.\u201d That seems unlikely for now. Henry, who is facing calls to resign or form a transitional council, remains unable to return home. He arrived in Puerto Rico on Tuesday after he was unable to land in the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti. The Dominican government said he lacked a required flight plan as they closed their country\u2019s airspace with Haiti.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Haitian officials extended a state of emergency and nightly curfew on Thursday as gangs continued to attack key state institutions. \u201cThey are saying essentially that they are prepared to take over the government,\u201d said Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics experts at the University of Virginia, referring to the gangs. \u201cI think we should take them fairly seriously.\u201d Valdo Cene, 38, said he worries that elderly people are dying in their homes, with some people unable to venture out for food and water because gangs control their neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n
Cene used to sell propane, which many use for cooking. But he has been unable to resupply because gangs are blocking the roads and seizing control of more territory, including parts of Canaan, a community north of Port-au-Prince. \u201cThe whole area is suffering,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are not getting any water. They are not getting any propane.\u201d Cene said he and his family are living off their remaining rice, beans, sardines and plantains, along with a handful of yams and carrots. He wonders when he\u2019ll be able to make a living again.<\/p>\n
As more and more people are left unemployed, street vendors are selling smaller amounts of essential goods. On a recent afternoon, Gerald poured less than a cupful of cooking oil into an old water bottle and handed it to a young boy. It was all the boy\u2019s family could afford, and not enough for Gerald to continue making a living. \u201cIf the foreign force comes in, it will give a break to the little people like me to have a life and continue fighting for a better future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rotting fruit, withered vegetables, empty water jugs and spent gas canisters now stock the stores and stands that serve Haiti\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":33524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[547,3108,312,4016,9712,11010,10573,9686,11008,11009,10687,9770,344,614,314,11007],"class_list":["post-33523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-coup","tag-crime","tag-economy","tag-emergency","tag-food-shortage","tag-foreign-forces","tag-gang-violence","tag-haiti","tag-logistics-shutdown","tag-roads-blocked","tag-starvation","tag-supply-chain-disruption","tag-un","tag-un-peacekeeping-force","tag-unemployment","tag-water-shortage"],"reading_time":"5 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}