PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) 鈥 A crowd of about 100 people tried to shove through a metal gate in Haiti鈥檚 capital as a guard with a baton pushed them back, threatening to hit them. Undeterred, children and adults alike, some of them carrying babies, kept elbowing each other trying to enter.
鈥淟et us in! We鈥檙e hungry!鈥 they shouted on a recent afternoon.
They were trying to get into a makeshift shelter in an abandoned school. Inside, workers dipped ladles into buckets filled with soup that they poured into Styrofoam containers stuffed with rice to distribute to Haitians who have .
About 1.4 million Haitians are on the verge of famine, and more than , sometimes eating only once a day or nothing at all, aid groups say.
鈥淗aiti is facing a protractive and mass hunger,鈥 Jean-Martin Bauer, Haiti director for the United Nations' World Food Program, told The Associated Press. He noted that Croix-des-Bouquets, in the eastern part of Haiti鈥檚 capital, 鈥渉as malnutrition rates comparable with any war zone in the world.鈥
Officials are trying to rush food, water and medical supplies to makeshift shelters and other places as gang violence suffocates lives across Port-au-Prince and beyond, with .
Only a few aid organizations have been able to restart since Feb. 29, when gangs began attacking key institutions, burning police stations, with gunfire and storming two prisons, .
The violence forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to announce early Tuesday that he would , but gangs demanding his ouster have continued their attacks in several communities.
Bauer and other officials said that the gangs are blocking distribution routes and paralyzing the main port, and that WFP's warehouse is running out of grains, beans and vegetable oil as it continues to deliver meals.
鈥淲e have supplies for weeks. I鈥檓 saying weeks, not months,鈥 Bauer said. 鈥淭hat has me terrified.鈥
Inside the makeshift shelter at the school, things were a bit more orderly, with scores of people standing in line for food. More than 3,700 shelter residents compete for a place to sleep and share a hole in the ground for a toilet.
Marie Lourdes Geneus, a 45-year-old street vendor and mother of seven children, said that gangs chased her family out of three different homes before they ended up at the shelter.
鈥淚f you look around, there are a lot of desperate people who look like me, who had a life and lost it,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a horrible life I鈥檓 living. I made a lot of effort in life and look where I end up, trying to survive.鈥
She said she occasionally ventures out to sell beans to buy extra food for her children 鈥 who sometimes eat only once a day 鈥 but ends up being , spilling her goods on the ground as she runs.
Erigeunes Jeffrand, 54, said that he used to make a living selling up to four wheelbarrow-loads of sugar cane a day, but that gangs recently chased him and his four children out of their neighborhood.
鈥淢y home was completely destroyed and robbed,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hey took everything I have. And now, they鈥檙e not even letting me work.鈥
He sent his two youngest children to live with relatives in Haiti鈥檚 more quiet countryside, while the two eldest live with him at the shelter.
鈥淐an you believe I had a home?鈥 he said. 鈥淚 was making ends meet. But now, I鈥檓 just depending on what people provide me to eat. This is not a life."
More than 200 gangs are believed to operate in Haiti, with nearly two dozen concentrated in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. They now control 80% of the capital and are .
Scores of people have died in the most recent attacks, and more than 15,000 have been left homeless.
The situation has prevented aid groups like Food for the Hungry from operating at a time when their help is needed the most.
鈥淲e鈥檙e stuck, with no cash and no capacity to move out what we have in our warehouse,鈥 said Boby Sander, the organization鈥檚 Haiti director. 鈥淚t鈥檚 catastrophic.鈥
Food for the Hungry operates a cash-based program that helps about 25,000 families a year by sending them money, but he said that the ongoing looting and attacks on banks have crippled the system.
鈥淪ince Feb. 29, we have not been able to do anything at all,鈥 he said.
On a recent morning, the fragrance of cooking rice drew a group of adults and teenage boys to a sidewalk near a building where aid workers prepared meals to distribute to shelters elsewhere in the city.
鈥淐an you help me get a plate of food? We haven鈥檛 had anything to eat today yet,鈥 they asked people going in and out of the building. But their pleas went unanswered. The food was destined for the shelter at the school.
鈥淲e know it鈥檚 not a lot,鈥 said Jean Emmanuel Joseph, who oversees food distribution for the Center for Peasant Organization and Community Action. 鈥淚t鈥檚 too bad we don鈥檛 have the possibility to give them more.鈥
At the shelter, some adults and children tried to get back in line for a second serving.
鈥淵ou already had a plate,鈥 they were told. 鈥淟et others get one.鈥
Shelter resident Jethro Antoine, 55, said the food is meant only for residents, but there's little that can be done about outsiders who squeeze in.
鈥淚f you go and complain about it, you鈥檙e going to become the enemy, you might even be killed for that,鈥 he said.
The U.S. Agency for International Development said that around 5.5 million people in Haiti 鈥 nearly half the population 鈥 need humanitarian aid, and pledged $25 million in addition to the $33 million announced earlier this week.
The WFP's Bauer said the humanitarian appeal for Haiti this year is less than 3% funded, with the U.N. agency needing $95 million in the next six months.
鈥淐onflict and hunger in Haiti are moving hand-in-hand,鈥 he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 frightened about where we鈥檙e going.鈥
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D谩nica Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
