UN receives 40 percent of funds asked for Haiti

By Senabri Silvestre

SANTO DOMINGO, Dom. Rep.

The United Nations has only received 40 percent of the emergency funds needed to help Haiti cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, a UN official said.

The global body has urged donors to contribute $120 million in funds to help at least 750,000 Haitians needing urgent support after the Category 4 storm tore through the country early October, senior UN humanitarian official John Ging said Wednesday, according to the UN News Center website.

“Forty percent [of the funding] means that 60 percent of the [humanitarian work] is not being done. This means a lot of unnecessary suffering for people who have had their livelihoods and their homes completely wiped out,” he said.

Lack of funding has had a major impact on the humanitarian response to Hurricane Matthew, which killed more than 546 and directly affected about 1.4 million Haitians.

Some 175,000 people were displaced to 307 temporary shelters, including 86 schools, the UN statement added.

Before heading towards southeastern United States, Matthew struck seven among the 10 administrative departments of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with maximum sustained winds of 230 kilometers per hour (145 miles per hour), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.