March 21, 2024 (EIRNS)—Reporting from Port-au-Prince on March 20, ABC News included a warning from Jean Marc deMatteis, CEO of the Hospital Albert Schweitzer, one of the country’s most important hospitals: “With the ports shut down, there is now real concern that Port-au-Prince could actually run out of food and other essential supplies in the next two weeks.”
ABC News reporter Matt Rivers interviewed one woman who had fled her home and taken refuge in an empty government building. She told him: “We are dying of hunger. The babies are dying of hunger. The disabled are dying of hunger. The young are dying of hunger. Everyone is dying of hunger. We can’t help each other.”
The UN has been able to establish an airlift between the Dominican Republic, Haiti’s neighbor on the island of Hispaniola, so that some relief personnel, medical supplies and food are getting into the country. But both the frequency of flights and where the flights are able to land remain unclear. Local and international aid groups try to deliver food and medical supplies, but the security situation makes it dangerous. Food scarcity, due to lack of transportation caused by road blockades, has caused prices to shoot up, often making food unaffordable to the increasingly impoverished population.
Today, the Haitian Times reported that Port-au-Prince is at a standstill: schools, banks, commercial and government offices are closed to avoid gang attacks. Some government buildings have been abandoned altogether. Schools have been closed for at least three weeks, because they are not protected from gang attacks.
