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Thursday, February 27, 2025

UNICEF says one in eight children internally displaced in Haiti

by

39 days ago
20250119

The Unit­ed Na­tions Chil­dren’s Fund (UNICEF) says the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Haiti has reached a crit­i­cal point, with one in eight chil­dren now in­ter­nal­ly dis­placed due to es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence fu­eled by armed groups who con­tin­ue to con­trol most of the cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince.

UNICEF point­ed to the lat­est da­ta that re­veals that over 500,000 chil­dren have been forced from their homes, rep­re­sent­ing a  48 per cent in­crease since Sep­tem­ber.

It said in to­tal, more than one mil­lion Haitians are in­ter­nal­ly dis­placed, half of whom are chil­dren ur­gent­ly re­quir­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid.

“It is a hor­rif­ic time to be a child in Haiti, with vi­o­lence up­end­ing lives and forc­ing more chil­dren and fam­i­lies from their homes,” said UNICEF Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Cather­ine Rus­sell.

“Chil­dren des­per­ate­ly need safe­ty, pro­tec­tion and ac­cess to es­sen­tial ser­vices. We can­not look away,” she added.

Rus­sell said decades of po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty, pover­ty and in­equal­i­ty have en­abled the rise of armed groups, stat­ing that the im­pact on chil­dren has been dev­as­tat­ing.

UNICEF not­ed that re­ports in­di­cate a 70 per cent surge in child re­cruit­ment over the past year, with mi­nors mak­ing up as much as 50 per cent of their ranks.

“This re­cruit­ment vi­o­lates in­ter­na­tion­al law and con­sti­tutes a grave vi­o­la­tion of chil­dren’s rights,” it said, not­ing that the dis­place­ment cri­sis has left chil­dren es­pe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble to vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing sex­u­al vi­o­lence, ex­ploita­tion and abuse.

It said In­ci­dents of sex­u­al vi­o­lence against chil­dren have in­creased by 1,000 per cent in the last year.

The UN agency said ac­cess to ba­sic ser­vices, such as ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, clean wa­ter and san­i­ta­tion, has been se­vere­ly dis­rupt­ed, leav­ing chil­dren at height­ened risk of mal­nu­tri­tion and dis­ease.

UNICEF said near­ly 6,000 peo­ple are en­dur­ing famine-like con­di­tions, and un­san­i­tary dis­place­ment sites have cre­at­ed fer­tile ground for cholera out­breaks.

It said the French-speak­ing Caribbean coun­try has record­ed near­ly 88,000 sus­pect­ed cas­es of the dis­ease, which dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fects chil­dren. UNICEF said the cri­sis is par­tic­u­lar­ly acute in the met­ro­pol­i­tan area of Port-au-Prince, “where vi­o­lence and in­sta­bil­i­ty are ram­pant”.

It said by De­cem­ber at­tempt­ed sieges of res­i­den­tial neigh­bour­hoods forced ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40,000 peo­ple to flee their homes in just two weeks.

UNICEF es­ti­mat­ed that three mil­lion chil­dren na­tion­wide need hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance, with 1.2 mil­lion chil­dren in im­me­di­ate dan­ger across the city.

The UN Chil­dren’s Fund is urg­ing all par­ties to im­me­di­ate­ly cease hos­til­i­ties and end vi­o­la­tions of chil­dren’s rights, in­clud­ing re­cruit­ment by armed groups and all forms of sex­u­al vi­o­lence.

The agency has al­so called for unim­ped­ed ac­cess for hu­man­i­tar­i­an work­ers to reach those in need, in­clud­ing dis­placed pop­u­la­tions.

“Chil­dren in Haiti are bear­ing the brunt of a cri­sis they did not cre­ate. They re­ly on the Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to take ur­gent ac­tion to pro­tect their lives and safe­guard their fu­tures,” Rus­sell said.

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS, Jan 19, CMC

CMC/nk/nb/2025

 


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