Haiti

Violence triggers record displacements in Haiti’s capital
In just one month, intensifying violence has forced over 60,000 people to flee their homes in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, marking another grim record in the country’s worsening humanitarian crisis.
 

Haiti is in freefall. Gangs are tightening their grip on the capital, violence is spreading, and “suffering permeates all social strata” in a nation teetering on the brink, according to the UN human rights office’s designated expert on the country, William O’Neill. 

UNICEF’s Ms. Narayan stressed that last year, child recruitment into armed groups “surged by 70 per cent”. “Right now, we estimate that up to half of all armed group members are children, some as young as eight years old,” she said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has ruled out transitioning the multinational security support mission (MSS) in Haiti into a U.N. peacekeeping force for now, and is instead recommending creating a U.N. support mission to back the MSS that will be funded through the U.N. peacekeeping budget. 

Criminal gangs have tightened their grip on much of Port-au-Prince, with the multinational security mission making little headway and transitional authorities mired in internal disputes. The UN Security Council should quickly decide how to respond to Haiti’s request for further assistance in restoring public safety.

The U.S. has notified the United Nations that it is freezing some funding to a U.N.-backed mission in Haiti tasked with fighting gangs trying to seize full control of the country’s capital, the U.N. said Tuesday. The U.S. has been the biggest contributor to the mission led by Kenyan police, which was launched last year and is struggling with a lack of funding and personnel. The change in funding will have an “immediate impact,” U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said.

French President Emmanuel Macron has asked the United Nations to consider sending a peacekeeping force to Haiti. The suggestion was made in a letter Macron sent to the U.N. after meeting with Leslie Voltaire, resident of Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council at the Elysee Palace in Paris. 

Haiti's capital could become overrun by criminal gangs if the international community does not step up aid to a United Nations-backed security mission there, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned in a report Wednesday. More money, equipment and personnel are needed for the Kenya-led international force, Guterres said, adding that any further delays risk the "catastrophic" collapse of Haiti's security institutions … .

Haiti is showing signs of progress on the political front despite serious setbacks in terms of security, the Special Representative and Head of the UN office in the country, BINUH, told the Security Council on Wednesday. 

Kenya sent more than 200 police officers to Haiti on Saturday, providing backup to an understaffed security mission in the Caribbean country where rampant gang violence has displaced more than a million people. Some 10 countries have together pledged over 3,100 troops for Haiti as part of a U.N.-backed anti-gang force, but few have so far deployed.