Overshadowed by fighting in the Middle East and the U.S. presidential election, Haiti’s collapse into a dystopian nightmare continues unabated.
Violence remains endemic, famine looms and international humanitarians are fleeing the island nation as lawless street gangs tighten their hold and step up their rein of terror.
Women and girls are sexually assaulted and raped with impunity, and children as young as 8 years old are forcibly recruited into the gangs; minors reportedly make up a third to a half of all gang members.
The number of children recruited by armed groups in Haiti has increased by 70% over the last year, according to estimates released this week by UNICEF, the children’s welfare agency.
International organizations such as Amnesty International have been calling for international condemnation and lasting solutions that address the deep-seated corruption and other root causes of the crisis.
U.N. 'not leaving Haiti'
As the brutality intensifies, the United Nations is reducing its staff to a bare minimum and evacuating most of its workers, while insisting that it is not abandoning its mission.
“The U.N. is not leaving Haiti,” Ulrika Richardson, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator in Haiti since June 2022, said earlier this week. “We are committed to staying in Haiti.”
Still, the role, future and structure of international humanitarian efforts remain uncertain and under debate.
Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a crucial health-care provider and operator of needed burn and trauma centers and other facilities, announced it has suspended its work in Haiti’s capital, due to the escalating violence and a threatening run-in with Haitian police forces.
“As MSF, we accept working in conditions of insecurity, but when even law enforcement becomes a direct threat, we have no choice but to suspend admissions of patients in Port-au-Prince until the conditions are met for us to resume,” said Christophe Garnier, MSF's mission chief in Haiti.
Underfunding remains a challenge
The Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, led by Kenya and deployed to assist the Haitian National Police in combating gang violence, remains, for now. However, it faces major challenges — underfunding, personnel shortages and the chaotic nature of the violence.
The U.N. has discussed transforming the MSS into a formal peacekeeping operation to secure stable financing and resources, but two of the U.N. Security Council's veto-wielding members, Russia and China, are opposed.
Officials estimate that the armed gangs control as much as 90% of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, and are making inroads into areas and neighborhoods that had escaped the worst of the violence.
“This crisis is the result of decades of political instability, extreme poverty, natural disasters, the weakening of state institutions and the lack of real engagement from the international community, which have left the population vulnerable to violence," said Ana Piquer, Amnesty's Americas director.
"Military solutions and external interventions have failed to address the root causes of the crisis and, far from leading to sustainable stability, they have left a lasting legacy of human rights violations and impunity."
Millions go hungry
Food insecurity for most families in the capital is only growing more urgent. The Famine Early Warning System Network says millions face acute malnutrition with widespread famine increasing likely.
The organization estimates the number of people needing emergency food aid will fluctuate between 2 million and 2.49 million, and reach a peak starting in April. Only a portion of this population is likely to receive help because of the violence and insufficient funding.
UNICEF attributes the rise in recruitment of children by the armed groups to escalating violence, hunger, pervasive poverty, lack of education, closing of schools and a near collapse of critical infrastructure and social services. Haitian children are coerced into the gangs to help feed their families or because of threats.
Those who don’t join are often viewed with suspicion, and risk being branded as spies or even killed. When they defect or refuse to join the violence, their lives and safety are immediately at risk.
Children scarred for life
Children “are subjected to atrocities no child should ever have to experience, leaving them with psychological and emotional scars that might haunt them for a lifetime,” says UNICEF chief Catherine Russell. “Chaos and horror have become part of daily life.”
The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch says Haiti’s gangs use sexual violence to instill fear while subjecting girls and women to “horrific sexual abuse.”
“The rule of law in Haiti is so broken that members of criminal groups rape girls or women without fearing any consequences,” says HRW researcher Nathalye Cotrino.
Thousands of women and girls have reported sexual violence, including gang rape, but that number is likely a fraction of the assaults as most attacks go unreported because of fear of reprisal.
“The bandits don’t care about their age,” an aid worker told HRW. “They rape because they have the power.”
