The Unit­ed Na­tions Res­i­dent and Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Co­or­di­na­tor in Haiti, Ul­ri­ka Richard­son, says that “Haitians want to be able to live, not just sur­vive.

“The sit­u­a­tion in Haiti is very crit­i­cal, es­pe­cial­ly in the cap­i­tal,” said Richard­son, adding “You could even say that there are two re­al­i­ties in the coun­try”.

Richard­son said gangs con­tin­ue to ex­ert their in­flu­ence and con­trol over many dis­tricts of the cap­i­tal, adding “This means that, for the pop­u­la­tion, life is al­most im­pos­si­ble, with the risk of be­ing killed by stray bul­lets, but al­so of be­ing at­tacked and raped.

“Many neigh­bour­hoods are com­plete­ly un­der the con­trol of gangs who im­pose bru­tal vi­o­lence. And they don’t stop them­selves from gang-rap­ing women and chil­dren. They re­cruit chil­dren in­to their ranks, and that is ex­treme­ly wor­ry­ing.

“There are many dis­placed peo­ple; it is es­ti­mat­ed that there are over 700,000 in­ter­nal­ly dis­placed peo­ple in the coun­try. On the oth­er hand, the re­al­i­ty is a lit­tle dif­fer­ent in the rest of the coun­try where life goes on, even though there are many dis­placed peo­ple flee­ing to the south and even to the north.”

Richard­son said around 1.6 mil­lion peo­ple in the French-speak­ing coun­try are not get­ting enough to eat while the cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince, is in the grip of armed gang vi­o­lence that has claimed thou­sands of lives since Jan­u­ary this year and dis­placed more than 700,000 peo­ple.

To com­bat this vi­o­lence, the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil au­tho­rised a non-UN multi­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sup­port mis­sion. The first troops were de­ployed ear­li­er this year un­der the lead­er­ship of Kenya.

“Hait­ian peo­ple want what you and I want: they want to be able to live, not just sur­vive. Young peo­ple say that they have dreams and that they want the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ful­fil them, just like every­one else in the world,” Richard­son said.

“Par­ents want their chil­dren to go to school. It’s a sign of hope for them. The planned re­open­ing of class­es in Oc­to­ber took place in very dif­fi­cult con­di­tions, and not all the chil­dren were able to re­turn to school.

“So, this means that Haitians want to live in dig­ni­ty. They want to be able to leave their homes with­out risk­ing their lives. They want to be able to live, have a job and go to work.”

Richard­son said fur­ther in­vest­ment is need­ed in the non-UN multi­na­tion­al mis­sion in Haiti, call­ing on all mem­ber-states to con­tribute to the mis­sion to en­sure that it has the re­sources it needs to sup­port the Hait­ian Na­tion­al Po­lice on the ground, “who are al­ready do­ing an ex­cel­lent job in very dif­fi­cult con­di­tions”.

The Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor said her team is cur­rent­ly work­ing with UNICEF, sev­er­al agen­cies in the UN coun­try team in Haiti, BIN­UH and oth­er part­ners to iden­ti­fy the best mech­a­nisms for tak­ing care of chil­dren and young peo­ple, in­clud­ing those who have been re­cruit­ed in­to gangs, “so that they can have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have a bet­ter fu­ture.”

She said this may in­volve for­mal or non-for­mal school­ing, “but that re­mains to be de­fined.

“We want to give them the chance to dream of a bet­ter to­mor­row, by car­ry­ing out no­ble ac­tiv­i­ties with dig­ni­ty,” said Richard­son, adding that for her and for many of who work in Haiti, “it’s very frus­trat­ing to see the sit­u­a­tion as it is now.

“The coun­try has po­ten­tial. It’s a coun­try with a no­ble his­to­ry. It was one of the most avant-garde coun­tries in terms of hu­man rights and free­dom, prin­ci­ples that are very close to what our val­ues are to­day.

“So, it’s frus­trat­ing to see all this vi­o­lence. But even in a con­text like this, we man­age to reach the pop­u­la­tion in the cap­i­tal and in the rest of the coun­try, which re­quires a dif­fer­ent ap­proach,” she said.

“Yes, we are work­ing with the pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble. We’re work­ing with hu­man­i­tar­i­an ac­tors who are re­al­ly try­ing, and suc­ceed­ing, to reach the pop­u­la­tion. I think we’ve suc­ceed­ed not on­ly be­cause our col­leagues are high­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, but al­so be­cause of our strong Hait­ian part­ners. And that’s what keeps us mo­ti­vat­ed.”

Richard­son said that while ad­dress­ing the is­sue of se­cu­ri­ty, the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must al­so work on oth­er is­sues, such as pre­ven­tion, the fight against cor­rup­tion and im­puni­ty, “and every­thing to do with the im­ple­men­ta­tion and es­tab­lish­ment of the rule of law”.

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS, Nov 5, CMC –

CMC/nk/ir/2024