Widespread fuel shortages and related unrest are resulting in millions of people unable to access much-needed aid in the Central African Republic and Haiti, humanitarian organisations have warned.
I spoke to Michael Walker, the Director of Analysis and Research at International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO) – an organisation which monitors and reports on aid workers’ safety – about the impacts the fuel crisis is having in the countries where it works.

Mercy Corps said while it continues to develop contingency plans, the situation means many people did not have access to lifesaving services, in a nation where more than 4 million people are food insecure.
Italian NGO AVSI Foundation said it has had to scale back assistance for severely malnourished people in some rural areas because staff members could not reach them, and according to Save the Children, Haiti’s fuel shortage was preventing water pumps from working and could force people to use unsafe sources to drink.
The United Nations’ Deputy Special Representative in the country, Ulrika Richardson, said that sanitation has been severely impacted.
“We haven’t had waste collection for months because of the violent situation, the violence on the streets caused by the armed gangs, but also because of the fuel shortage,” she said.

In the Central African Republic, high prices for fuel and difficulty obtaining it is also having an impact on NGOs’ abilities to respond to need, Michael told me.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said that the “alarming” fuel shortage in the Central African Republic has seen its operations reduce by 50 percent across the country, at a time of acute humanitarian need. It says water, sanitation and shelter programmes are the most affected as they require fuel due to the use of transport trucks.

Its Country Director in the Central African Republic, Tchatat Yakwa Godain Powel, said donor countries need to consider the increase in prices and scale up their responses.
“If the funding is not urgently increased, the impact of the war in Ukraine will continue pulling a country largely weakened by years of conflict into a downward spiral,” he said.
The header image of families receiving aid in the Central African Republic was sourced from Gerald Bikombi/IFRC.
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