UN food agency appeals for $46 million to help 2 million Haitians facing severe hunger

Commuters pass by police patrolling an intersection in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, May 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph) The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. food agency is appealing for $46 million for the next six months to help about 2 million Haitians in dire need of food, including 8,500 at the worst catastrophic level of hunger.

The appeal was issued by Lola Castro, the World Food Program’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, who recently returned from Haiti, where escalating gang violence has displaced well over 1 million people and left half the population — 5.7 million people — in urgent need of food.

Two million of them are in the two worst categories in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the leading international authori