The Unit­ed Na­tions Tues­day said it is adapt­ing its op­er­a­tions in Haiti to en­sure the con­tin­ued de­liv­ery of crit­i­cal hu­man­i­tar­i­an pro­grammes to the pop­u­la­tion in the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try.

The UN al­so an­nounced that it is con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide as­sis­tance to Cu­ba, one month af­ter Hur­ri­canes Os­car and Rafael, as well as two earth­quakes,  struck the east­ern and west­ern parts of the coun­try.

“In light of the sig­nif­i­cant­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ing se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in Port-au-Prince, in­clud­ing in neigh­bour­hoods where our of­fices are lo­cat­ed, the Unit­ed Na­tions is adapt­ing its op­er­a­tions to en­sure the con­tin­ued de­liv­ery of crit­i­cal hu­man­i­tar­i­an pro­grammes,”  said Farhan Haq, the Deputy Spokesper­son for the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, An­to­nio Guter­res.

“We want to em­pha­size that the UN is not leav­ing Haiti. We con­tin­ue sup­port­ing the Hait­ian peo­ple and au­thor­i­ties, with crit­i­cal hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance and po­lit­i­cal sup­port to as­sist Hait­ian-led ef­forts to suc­cess­ful­ly car­ry out the po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tion,” he said.

Haq said that es­sen­tial UN per­son­nel, from agen­cies and the UN Mis­sion, BIN­UH, the UN’s r po­lit­i­cal mis­sion, re­main in Port-au-Prince to car­ry out crit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties and that the UN con­tin­ues to de­liv­er pro­grammes out­side the cap­i­tal.

Haiti has been rocked by crim­i­nal gangs that have tak­en over a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of  the cap­i­tal, Port au Prince.

The Unit­ed Na­tions Chil­dren’s  Fund (UNICEF) said Mon­day that the num­ber of chil­dren be­ing re­cruit­ed in­to armed groups across Haiti has in­creased by 70 per cent over the past year.

It said the un­prece­dent­ed spike al­so re­veals the alarm­ing de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of child pro­tec­tion amid es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence in the Caribbean na­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the lat­est es­ti­mates, chil­dren now com­prise up to half of all armed group mem­bers, with re­cruit­ment dri­ven by wide­spread pover­ty, lack of ed­u­ca­tion and col­lapse of es­sen­tial ser­vices.

Re­gard­ing Cu­ba, Haq said that the UN team on the ground con­tin­ues de­liv­er­ing as­sis­tance and sup­port­ing the gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse.

Last week, the UN Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor, Fran­cis­co Pi­chon, led a del­e­ga­tion to hur­ri­cane-af­fect­ed ar­eas in the west of the coun­try to hear first-hand ac­counts from those af­fect­ed and as­sess the sit­u­a­tion.

“The UN Coun­try Team al­so pub­lished an up­dat­ed Plan of Ac­tion which seeks US$78.3 mil­lion to meet the most ur­gent needs of some 930,000 peo­ple and sup­port ear­ly re­cov­ery ef­forts,” Haq said, adding that last week, an ad­di­tion­al six mil­lion US dol­lars from the Cen­tral Emer­gency Re­sponse Fund (CERF) was al­lo­cat­ed to sup­port the hur­ri­cane re­sponse.

He said OCHA is al­so re­leas­ing a sec­ond emer­gency cash grant of US$100,000 for im­me­di­ate sup­plies.

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS, Nov 26, CMC

CMC/ag/ir/2024