UNITED NATIONS, (CMC) – The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Wednesday continued to sound the alarm at the rising violence and worsening humanitarian conditions in Haiti.

OCHR said that the situation is especially bad in the departments of Centre and Ouest, where the capital Port au Prince is located.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said armed attacks in the past few weeks in the Centre department’s communes of Saut d’Eau and Mirebalais have now displaced more than 30,000 people.

“The vast majority of them have remained in the department. Our humanitarian colleagues, along with partners, are providing assistance, including food, hygiene kits, safe water and psychosocial support,” Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres told reporters at the daily briefing here on Wednesday.

He said in addition to the security crisis, the cholera situation in Haiti has worsened with officials indicating that in the first three months of the year,  close to 1,300 suspected cases have been reported, including nine confirmed cases and 19 deaths.

“This is what the World Health Organisation (WHO) is telling us. The overall case fatality rate stands at 1.65 per cent, above the emergency threshold of 1 per cent,” Dujarric said, adding that significant increases in suspected cases have been reported in Cité Soleil in Port au Prince and in the town of Arcahaie, which included displacement sites where living conditions, as you can imagine, are very precarious.

“The cholera response task force, working under the leadership of the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP), and supported by humanitarian and international organisations, continues active monitoring and intervention.

“We and our partners are continuing to assist, including surveillance, laboratory support, case management, risk communication, vaccination, water and sanitation services, and infection prevention and control,” Dujarric told reporters.

“However, OCHA says that the response efforts remain severely limited due to insecurity, lack of access and underfunding,” he added.