October 29, 2026, Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Hunger across Haiti is worsening. A new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, released yesterday, finds that more than 5.94 million people, 53% of the population, face “crisis” levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above). That is an increase of nearly a quarter of a million compared to the same period a year earlier. The IPC’s assessment projects that these numbers will rise to 6.35 million people over the coming six months and that extreme hunger will expand to more regions.
“These numbers reflect a humanitarian crisis in Haiti that, tragically, continues to deepen. When we say people are facing crisis levels of hunger, we are talking about families who can’t reliably put enough food on the table, who are skipping meals, selling what little they own, or going into debt just to eat. As a result, the most vulnerable people such as children, as well as pregnant and lactating women, are growing weaker and sicker,” said Dianna Darsney, CARE’s Global Humanitarian Director. “Women and girls are most impacted by this crisis, especially those who are left to run households alone. Burdened to care for and prioritize others, they tend to eat least and last.”
Acute levels of armed violence, including sexual violence, in recent years have pushed a country already fragile for decades deeper into crisis, with millions struggling amid hunger, displacement, and collapsing services. As a result, nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced, many more than once.
Violence which was initially contained to areas in and around the capital has spread steadily beyond Port au Prince. Just last week, in the Artibonite department, an armed attack on October 19 forced thousands of people from their homes in the town of Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite, according to OCHA.
But the hunger crisis is felt across the country, even in areas spared the worst of the insecurity. Travel between regions can take days, inflation stands at 17 percent, and poor harvests, worsened by last year’s Hurricane Melissa, are cutting food supplies. Heavy rains and flooding this week have added to the strain, displacing thousands of people and destroying farmland, mainly in the south and southwest. With El Niño impacts expected, needs are expected to grow further.
Displacement from the capital is straining communities elsewhere. “Many people are moving to other departments, placing additional pressure on host communities whose capacity to accommodate new arrivals is already very limited,” said Nathalie Éléonor Vilgrain, Co-Founder and General Coordinator of MARIJÀN, a youth-led feminist organization that works in Port-au-Prince and in southern Haiti. “That has a big effect on those communities, because they weren’t prepared to have so many people in one space who need clean water, food, housing, and work opportunities.”
In Jérémie, in the southwest, CARE teams are seeing hunger worsen among women-led households with young children. Louis Litane cares for a family of four there, including her grandson Woodley Michel, who is supported through CARE’s Pwojè Nitrisyon Timoun [Child Nutrition Project)]. “Sometimes we find something to eat in the morning, but in the afternoon, we don’t know what we’re going to do,” she said. When Woodley fell ill, the family spent everything they had on his care, and she had to stop her small business.
CARE launched the Pwojè Nitrisyon Timoun – funded by Project Resource Optimization – in 2025 with local partners. It provides community-based nutrition services in the southwest, identifying and treating child malnutrition early and strengthening local health facilities. But with rising transportation costs, many families cannot afford the gas or fares to reach those services. Support like this is lifesaving, but it cannot keep pace with the need,
Hunger is also pushing women and children across Haiti into dangerous choices. With no other options to feed their families, many are turning to survival sex, and some families are resorting to child marriage or the recruitment of children into gangs, which can pull children out of school and expose them to violence, disease, and exploitation.
The risks are already severe. Nearly 700 women and girls reported being raped by gangs in July and August alone, the UN Security Council was recently warned. Yet the health, legal, psychosocial and livelihood support services survivors need are extremely limited by aid cuts. To that end, less than half of the UN’s US$880 million humanitarian appeal for Haiti in 2026 has been funded.
Local women-led organizations, like MARIJÀN, are best placed to provide this lifesaving support, but they receive a disproportionately small share of the limited funding available.
“When survivors turn to us as a local organization, we want to have the answer, but sometimes we don’t, because we don’t have access to the kind of funding other actors have,” said Vilgrain.
About CARE in Haiti
CARE has worked in Haiti since 1954, partnering with local organizations to support communities affected by poverty, disasters, and conflict. CARE delivers food security and nutrition assistance, cash and livelihoods support, health services, water and sanitation, and programs addressing violence against women and girls.
For media inquiries, contact usa.media@care.org