FILE – People flee their neighborhood after armed gangs terrorized the Delmas 24 and Solino areas in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Oct. 26, 2024.
As displacement has grown, so has the number of sites sheltering them. Over the past year, IOM reports that the number of displacement sites has increased from 73 to 108. It says the sites are severely overcrowded and lack adequate access to essential services such as food, clean water, sanitation and education.
“Access remains one of the biggest challenges,” Okoth Omondi said. “As the violence surges, it becomes more and more difficult to access those who basically need humanitarian aid. The need for humanitarian assistance and long-term investment in governance, security and social cohesion are essential.”
U.N. officials say Haiti’s appeals for international support are falling on deaf ears. The United Nations reports that only 42.5% of the $673.8 million Haiti Humanitarian Response Plan has been funded.
Besides money, Haiti desperately needs security, a situation that remains elusive.
“The number of people who are being displaced is a clear indication of the surge of violence,” Okoth Omondi said. “So, we basically need more support for multilateral forces to ensure that we have peace and stability to the country and to the Haitians who desperately need this.”
Alessandra Vellucci, director of the U.N. Information Service in Geneva, told journalists that a Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti, composed of some 750 security personnel from the Bahamas, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica and Kenya, has been deployed to the impoverished Caribbean country.
“Kenya, who is the mission lead, has indicated it intends to deploy an additional 600 police officers,” Vellucci said, adding that “this is out of 2,500 personnel initially planned.”
“So, we really need them to step this up in order for the mission to demonstrate its full potential,” she said, stressing that the trust fund to support this mission is “currently severely underfunded.”
“We need to break the cycles of violence and the displacement,” Okoth Omondi said. “We need to foster stability in communities towards restoring hope and recovery to the people of Haiti.”
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Publish date : 2025-01-13 21:19:00
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