The U.S. government said on Saturday that it is arranging a charter flight from Haiti to the U.S. for those with valid passports.

The flight will leave from the Cap-Haitien International Airport, which can only accommodate limited travel amid violence in the country. The State Department instructed citizens and eligible family members interested in traveling to the U.S. to fill out an intake form.

Officials warned that the trip from Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital, to Cap-Haitien is “dangerous” and recommended that people consider the flight “only if you believe you can reach Cap-Haitien airport safely.” The government cannot currently provide overland transport to the airport, the State Department said, but is working “on options for departures out of Port-au-Prince.” The airport and the capital city are about 120 miles apart.
The country has been overwhelmed by violent gangs that some experts say have unleashed a low-scale civil war. Some 1.4 million Haitians are on the verge of famine, and more than 4 million require food aid, sometimes eating only once a day or nothing at all, aid groups say.

“Haiti is facing a protractive and mass hunger,” Jean-Martin Bauer, Haiti director for the United Nation’s World Food Program, told The Associated Press. He noted that Croix-des-Bouquets, in the eastern part of Haiti’s capital, “has malnutrition rates comparable with any war zone in the world.”

Gangs block aid

Officials are trying to rush food, water and medical supplies to makeshift shelters and other places as gang violence suffocates lives across Port-au-Prince and beyond, with many trapped in their homes.

Only a few aid organizations have been able to restart since Feb. 29, when gangs began attacking key institutions, burning police stations, shutting down the main international airport with gunfire and storming two prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.