UN humanitarians said on Friday that gang violence in Haiti continues to deteriorate, forcing civilians into impossible choices for their survival.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued the warning as it was launching the 2024 humanitarian response plan for Haiti worth 674 million U.S. dollars. It hopes to help 3.6 million people across the country. OCHA said the humanitarian situation forces civilians into impossible choices for their survival. Even leaving the house exposes Haitians to a range of threats, including sexual and gender-based violence. “Escalating violence in Cap-Haitien, Gonaives, Ouanaminthe, Les Cayes and in areas of the capital Port-au-Prince continues to disrupt daily activities and hamper humanitarian operations,” the office said.
OCHA said several businesses closed in the last few days, and transportation shut down. Some schools are closed, affecting more than 130,000 students, who miss out on the school feeding program, sometimes the only meal children receive for the day. The office said violence also hinders humanitarian work. Gang violence has made access to southern Haiti nearly impossible. “The humanitarian community calls on all parties to put an immediate stop to the violence, allow safe access in all parts of the country, and respect human rights and humanitarian principles,” OCHA said.
Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, was asked at a regular briefing about the status of the UN-authorized Kenyan-led police force to help stem the violence in Haiti. “That’s an issue really between the group of nations that will be providing assistance to Haiti,” he said, adding that the world body’s role is to create a trust fund for the deployment of police officers whose countries authorized sending them to Haiti. “On the operational end, it is not a UN Secretariat mission, though it does have Security Council blessing,” he said. The council authorized the deployment of a multinational force in October 2023. A debate in Kenya on legal issues is holding up police deployment.
