UN Director fears more death from malnutrition in Haiti

By Melissa Bryant
Reporter~SKNVibes.com

~~Adz:Left~~PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – UNITED NATIONS (UN) World Food Programme Country Director Myrta Kaulard said that she fears an increased number of deaths from malnutrition in isolated parts of Haiti, as a result of the storms that ravaged the country’s agriculture harvest earlier this year.

According to the Associated Press, the Doctors Without Borders contingent that is present in Haiti has found rates of severe malnutrition as high as five percent.

The World Food Programme (WFP) and the US Agency for International Development have sent tonnes of food aid to the country.
But the inaccessibility of some areas makes it difficult to deliver the food to mountain communities where hunger is worsening. In one case a WFP truck flipped over while struggling up a hill and slid into a ravine, killing an aid worker.

In pockets of Haiti, accessible only by donkey or foot, children are dying of malnutrition as their already meagre food supply has been reduced by the series of devastating storms that destroyed crops, wiped out livestock and sent food prices spiralling.

According to aid workers, at least 26 severely malnourished children have died in the past four weeks in the remote region of Baie d'Orange in Haiti's southeast. There are fears the toll will rise much higher if help does not come quickly to the impoverished Caribbean nation.

“Mountain villages normally have long suffered from chronic hunger as they grow only enough staples to feed themselves less than seven months out of the year. But families normally have enough to last through December.

“Sixty percent of Haiti’s agriculture harvest was lost because of the storms and, consequently, the land quality has deteriorated and farmers have lost their seeds for next year,” said Kaulard.

Aid shortages may soon compound the problem. Donor countries have funded only a third of the UN’s $105M aid appeal for Haiti following the storms, and resources could run out in January.