Hundreds of thousands of Haitians could go hungry if violence and unrest keep raging in the poverty-stricken Caribbean nation, UN officials said this evening.
Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country where chronic malnutrition rates range as high as 33 per cent, has been torn in recent days by an armed rebellion and government counter-revolt that have killed more than 35 people.
A UN assessment team is in the country of 8 million people to prepare a contingency plan in the event conditions deteriorate further, and is expected to report shortly to Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator, the officials said.
The rebellion began last Thursday in the city of Gonaives, the country's fourth-largest city and the birthplace of its independence from France 200 years ago, when a gang that once supported President Jean-Bertrand Aristide seized control.
The revolt spread to several other cities and towns and threatened the rule of Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest once hailed as a champion of Haiti's fledgling democracy but now criticized by opponents for abuse of civil rights and political thuggery.