Humanitarian crisis worsens in Haiti

The country faces a crisis of staggering proportions. A huge segment of the population800,000 people in a country of 8.7 millionis now in desperate need of basic humanitarian assistance, according to international aid agency UNICEF. If this proportion were extrapolated to the United States, with a population of some 300 million, the number of people in need of aid would be greater than the combined populations of the Los Angeles and New York City metropolitan areas, or the entire combined state populations of Michigan, Illinois and Indiana.

Before the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, many Haitians were already facing the threat of starvation because of spiraling food inflation in the past year. Because the vast majority of the population lives on less than $2 a day, and the devastation of crops has pushed food prices sharply higher, an even greater humanitarian catastrophe now looms.