Haiti

Surging gang violence in Haiti has caused a threefold rise in the number of people uprooted from their homes in a year, the UN migration agency, IOM, said on Tuesday, in a call for “sustained humanitarian assistance right now to save and protect lives”.

At least 5,601 people were killed in gang violence in Haiti last year, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday, appealing for greater efforts by the authorities and the international community to address the root causes. 

A contingent of security forces from Guatemala and El Salvador arrived in Haiti's capital Friday to reinforce a long-delayed United Nations-backed mission tasked with restoring security amid a bloody conflict with armed gangs.

The Security Council today received a briefing on its sanctions regime for Haiti and heard a call for stronger measures from the country’s representative, who reported a surge in homicides and a tripling of kidnappings this year amid arms embargo violations.

At least 110 mostly elderly people have been brutally murdered by gang members in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, according to a human rights group.

In this interview, Gloria Blaise, Ph.D., Director of Research Development at Haïti Policy House, discusses how the MSS [Multinational Security Support] mission has been received so far in Haiti and how the mission could build trust with Haitian communities.

The head of the United Nations children's agency said Monday that children make up about half of all armed gang members in Haiti and called for their enhanced protection.

As the security situation in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince rapidly worsens due to ongoing gang violence, the United Nations is adjusting its operations to ensure the continued delivery of critical humanitarian assistance.  

A senior U.N. official urged the international community on Wednesday to make good on its commitments to fund and equip a multinational security force in Haiti, which is struggling to help the Haitian National Police subdue armed gangs who are terrorizing the population, while some nations want to transform the multinational force into a U.N. peacekeeping force.

This year has seen a staggering 1,000 per cent or ten-fold surge in sexual violence against children in Haiti, during an unprecedented crisis which has seen armed gangs continue to terrorize communities amid a growing humanitarian disaster.