In the capital, Port-au-Prince, as in the provinces, markets are emptying, prices are rising, and families are forced to reduce their meals.

Between August 2024 and July 2025, consumer prices rose by more than 30 percent, while the cost of food increased by a third in one year, with households spending up to 65 percent of their income on food in the capital’s slums alone.

Four out of 10 households have a moderate or severe hunger index, and nearly half have had to go into debt to feed themselves, according to the online newspaper Haiti Libre.

The most affected are those who depend on small-scale commerce, transportation, or subsistence farming, activities now paralyzed by clashes and roadblocks.

At this stage, no area is classified as suffering from famine, but the newspaper warns that the deterioration could go faster if humanitarian aid were to decrease.

Six million Haitians now live below the poverty line, on less than $2.41 a day. Haiti, the newspaper warns, has entered a cycle in which hunger is no longer a temporary emergency, but a permanent state.

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