Due to rising food prices, citizens of Haiti are increasingly attempting to be smuggled into the United States.

From Reuters (via Yahoo News):

Acute hunger and the rising cost of living could send a new wave of boat people from Haiti, where rising food prices set off deadly riots two weeks ago and drove the prime minister from office, officials and analysts say.

In the small town of Montrouis, about 50 miles north of Port-au-Prince, desperate Haitians say they will seize the first opportunity to take a boat toward the U.S. coast to escape the misery that plagues Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

“I will leave with the next boat going to Miami because I can no longer resist this hunger,” Marcel Jonassaint, 34, told Reuters on Tuesday as he sat barefoot near the dock in Montrouis, throwing a handful of small rocks into the ocean.

“I have four children and I don’t have a job and everything is expensive, even for those who are working,” Jonassaint said. “So what do you want me to do?”

Montrouis is a coastal village, overlooking the island of La Gonave, reputed as a key launching point for migrant boats.

Since October 1, the US Coast Guard has intercepted 972 migrants.