Key Message Update: The uptick in insecurity reduces the impact of spring harvests on poor households' food consumption

This Key Message Update covers August 2024. Widespread Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes persist as the security situation continues to deteriorate, with armed gang activity severely disrupting household livelihoods and market supplies. Farmers with below-average incomes struggle to consume staple foods, and the situation is particularly worrying in Ouest and Artibonite, where violence and internal displacement are most concentrated. Cité Soleil faces Emergency (IPC Phase 4), while Croix-des-Bouquets and the communes of the lower Nord-Ouest, namely Bombardopolis, Baie de Henne and Môle Saint Nicolas, are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) with pockets of households in Emergency (IPC Phase 4).

July marked a sharp deterioration: according to ACLED, violent events including battles, explosions and violence against civilians more than doubled nationwide between June and July 2024 and almost tripled in the Ouest department, where more than 75 percent of incidents were recorded. Deaths linked to violence increased by 45 percent year-on-year and by more than 90 percent month-on-month, from 80 in July 2023 and 60 in June 2024 to 116 in July 2024. Throughout August, around 12 checkpoints installed by armed gangs on National Route 2 and the resulting clashes with police disrupted public transport on that corridor, particularly the flow of local produce from the Grand Sud to the capital and of imported goods in the opposite direction.

Ouest and Artibonite together account for more than 90 percent of violent events and deaths. The Multinational Security Support Mission is deploying but its effectiveness is not yet visible, and gangs are monitoring its progress and ready to exploit weaknesses, raising fears of escalation. Insecurity has also driven displacement: IOM reported 5,951 people, or 1,551 households, displaced in mid-July following attacks in Ganthier in Ouest, taking refuge with relatives or host families in the same commune and placing considerable pressure on those hosts.