More than one million people have been forced from their homes in Haiti amid a sharp upswing in gang attacks in the country’s embattled capital, Port-au-Prince, the UN has said.
The UN’s migration agency, the IOM, said that never before had such a large number of Haitians been reported to have been displaced by violence. More than half of those internally displaced people (IDPs) were children who were bearing the greatest brunt of Haiti’s security breakdown. Many had been displaced repeatedly.
“Haiti needs sustained humanitarian assistance right now to save and protect lives,” the agency’s director, Amy Pope, said, urging the international community to take action and “choose solidarity over indifference”.
“We must work together to address the root causes of the violence and instability that has led to so much death and destruction … Haitians deserve a future,” Pope added.
Recent months have seen a re-intensification of the conflict which has been unfolding on the streets of Port-au-Prince since last February, when crime bosses joined forces to launch a coordinated and politically-charged rebellion against the government.
That criminal insurrection – which saw heavily armed gang combatants target government buildings, hospitals, schools and the airport – brought the city to a virtual standstill, toppled the prime minister, and forced thousands of citizens to flee their homes.
The arrival of hundreds of Kenyan police officers from a US-backed multinational security mission in June brought some hope of salvation and a temporary lull in violence. But by October, when the Guardian spent a week reporting from Port-au-Prince, the situation was again spiraling out of control.
The sound of gunfire could be heard day and night. From the hills above Haiti’s capital, smoke could be seen billowing into the sky from the neighbourhood of Solino, as gang fighters paraded through its streets torching homes.
Next door, in a community called Kokiyo, terrified Solino residents could be seen fleeing for their lives, carrying whatever they could. A pile of furniture had been propped up on one street corner as locals sought to salvage their belongings. Nearby a man with a machete kept watch over one of the area’s entrances.
“This is effectively a civil war … Each day, each month, each year, the gangs have become more powerful,” said Felicen Dorcevah, a 45-year-old boxing coach, as displaced families trudged past his home to safety.
Dorcevah moved to Kokiyo after his home was damaged during the 2010 earthquake, which devastated Port-au-Prince 15 years ago last week. He said he feared being uprooted again. Several weeks later that fear was confirmed when Dorcevah and his family were forced to abandon their home to escape another gang assault.
The UN’s migration agency said there were now 108 severely overcrowded displacement sites in Port-au-Prince for such families, up from 73 a year ago. They include schools, churches and even government ministry buildings which have been occupied by destitute Haitians unsure when – or even if – they will be able to return home. The number of displaced people has tripled over the last year from about 315,000 in December 2023 to 1.04m now.
“What is going on here in Haiti is the consequence of impunity: impunity for financial crime, corruption, and also impunity for human rights violations,” said Rosy Auguste Ducena, a prominent human rights defender in Port-au-Prince whose group helps the victims of gang violence.
Despite a succession of high-profile gang massacres in which scores of people were killed, Haiti’s collapsed judicial system had not brought any of the culprits to justice, Ducena added. “As of today, not not even one gang member has been convicted – not even in absentia,” Ducena said, adding: “Human rights are violated every day and unfortunately those who are governing the country do not seem to understand that we are in an urgent situation.”
