As UN appeals for aid for Haiti, Pentagon sends in another military flight with supplies

Haiti’s beleaguered police force, which to many people’s surprise has managed to battle back successfully against a months-long insurgency by armed groups, received much needed reinforcements Thursday when the U.S. government sent in a charter flight stocked with equipment.

The flight, operated by a Miami-based charter company, was one of two aircraft that landed at the international airport in Port-au-Prince. The second was a U.S. military flight stocked with thousands of pounds of humanitarian aid. Both planes arrived on a day when the country entered a new era of governance and the United Nations continued to sound the alarm on the escalating humanitarian crisis.

Short on funding and with barely enough hot meals to last for the next six weeks, the U.N.’s World Food Program joined the appeal for humanitarian assistance for Haiti.

The organization’s deputy executive director, fresh off a visit to the Caribbean nation over the weekend, said with over 1 million Haitians facing famine, the United Nations food aid agency would like to do more but is struggling to meet the demand. The number of Haitians forced to flee their home from armed gangs is on the rise, and nearly 5 million Haitians — almost half of the population — are now struggling to feed themselves.

“The situation is dramatic, a devastating crisis, massive humanitarian impact,” Carl Skau said Thursday from New York as he addressed journalists at the U.N. daily press briefing.

It’s the worst humanitarian crisis the country has faced, he said, since the deadly 2010 earthquake left more than 1.5 million internally displaced in camps, another 1. 5 million injured and over 300,000 dead.

Adding to fears: the main terminal at Varreux, where fuel reserves are stored, has been closed since Monday after armed groups attacked the area and blocked the road leading into the port. The situation could lead to even more severe restrictions in the fuel supply, the U.N said.

The U.N. is seeking $674 million in humanitarian assistance for Haiti. The agency has only received about 8% of that as of this week, the head of the U.N. political mission in Port-au-Prince, María Isabel Salvador, told the Security Council when it met to discuss the situation in Haiti.

While the center of the alarming crisis is in the capital of Port-au-Prince — where coordinated attacks that started on Feb. 29 have left a trail of destruction as gangs loot and burn police stations, universities, hospitals and businesses — the fallout is being felt throughout. Nearly two months after the violent uprising, the main international airport and seaport remain closed while the price of food is skyrocketing.

The number of displaced people continues to rise, according to the latest U.N. report, which says there are more than 90,200 people living in 85 camps and other shelters. Another estimated 100,000 have left the capital altogether to escape the violence, the agency said, overwhelming many communities.

“There is displacement, there is disruption in trade and economy, there is inflation,” Skau said. “And so the crisis is felt everywhere.”

Skau, who visited Cap-Haïtien, the city on Haiti’s north coast, said he saw many women and girls who had left Port-au-Prince with nothing, and still had nothing. His agency, he told the Haitian daily Le Nouvelliste, needs $103 million to fund its activities over the next six months. The cost of the emergency food assistance alone, he said, is $60.8 million.

With only one helicopter at its disposal, Skau said WFP’s operations and that of other aid agencies would benefit greatly from the reopening of Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport and the main seaport.

“We’re hoping, having seen that the international airport opened for one flight, that that can be sustained and expanded,” Skau said, referring to a U.S. Air Force C-130 military plane that flew into the airport Tuesday.

On Thursday, the two flights carrying cargo arrived in Port-au-Prince with little notice. One flight, operated by Global X on behalf of the State Department, transported a set of materials and equipment to improve the operational capacity of the police, the institution said in a notice confirming the cargo but not providing specifics. The second was a charter flight coordinated by the Pentagon packed with 20 pallets of oral rehydration fluid that will be used to help more than 10,000 people fight a deadly cholera outbreak. According to the Pan American Health Organization, there have been 82,875 suspected cases since the disease’s resurgence in Haiti two years ago.

The pallets were transported by the Doral-based U.S. Southern Command on behalf of Hope for Haiti, a nonprofit working in the southern region that is positioning supplies to cope with the increased migration from the capital.

Hope for Haiti CEO Skyler Badenoch said the rehydration fluid, Pedialyte, was donated by MAP International, the non-profit group based in Georgia, and both the donation and delivery will play a vital role in their efforts to ensure the health and well-being of Haitian children and families.

Unlike Tuesday’s flight, the one that landed Thursday went virtually unnoticed, landing as Haitians in the capital were both consumed by the constant gunfire that could be heard in all parts of downtown Port-au-Prince, and the other event of the day: the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the swearing in of a new nine-member presidential transitional council that will now take the reins of governance.

The Southern Command said the flight into Haiti’s main airport, which hasn’t seen commercial air traffic since major U.S. carriers announced a suspension of service on March 4, marks “an important step toward the resumption of flights into Haiti.”

American Airlines, Spirit and JetBlue, which all fly into Port-au-Prince, continue to cite the civil unrest as the reasons they have not resumed commercial daily service.

The Southern Command, which is expected to fly more humanitarian aid into the country, is hoping to show that flights can once resume safely.

The reopening of the international airport and the main seaport, which has also been shut down since May 5, would help the UN food agency step up “logistical support in terms of having cargo flights coming in” and having vessels move goods along the coast, given that roads remain closed and under gang control, Skau said.

Acknowledging Thursday’s installation of Haiti’s new transitional presidential council, Skau said the food agency views it as progress and hopes that it can pave the way for the multinational security support force that is supposed to be led by Kenya.

“But I think it’s important to state here that political and security support really need to be matched by a robust humanitarian response,” he said. “These tracks cannot be exclusive. They need to move in parallel, and they won’t be success on the political unless we also step up our assistance to the people.”