Around 800,000 People in Haiti in Desperate Need of Urgent Food Supplies

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — About 800,000 people in Haiti are in need of urgent food supplies following the serious damage caused by Hurricane Matthew to the agriculture in the country, the United Nation's World Food Program said on Monday as they called for an increased international funding to assist distressed people in Haiti.

"Local products on the markets will soon be depleted and we need more funding in order to continue food distributions to help 800,000 people in need of food aid which is more than urgent," Miguel Barreto, WFP’s regional director in Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement.

An assessment conducted by the National Coordination for Food Security (CNSA), the World Food Program (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) after one week following the hurricane, concluded the pressing need for immediate food assistance to people in Haiti.

In many areas of Haiti, agriculture has been completely destroyed, while warehouses were severely damaged and around 50 to 80 percent of livestock were destroyed depending on how hard each area was hit by the hurricane, and as the winter season approaches and makes it harder for farmers to plant seeds, people are under the risk of facing a food security crisis.

According to Haiti's humanitarian community, the country will be needing $56 million during the next three months to be able to cope with the food needs of the people affected by the hurricane.

On October 4, Hurricane Matthew made landfall on Haiti’s west coast as a Category 4 storm, meaning it had sustained winds of 130 to 156 miles per hour.