The Unit­ed Na­tions says more than 20,000 peo­ple have fled their homes across Haiti’s cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince, in just four days amid es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence, with more than 17,000 seek­ing shel­ter in 15 dis­place­ment sites as crit­i­cal sup­ply chains col­lapse.

The UN said Haiti has faced in­sta­bil­i­ty since the 2021 as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse and that the cur­rent wave of dis­place­ment, the largest since Au­gust 2023, comes as armed gangs who have joined forces strength­en their grip on the cap­i­tal, leav­ing the po­lice over­whelmed and un­der­equipped.

The UN’s In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM) has warned that the cap­i­tal faces near-to­tal paral­y­sis fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent last week, when com­mer­cial air­craft were re­port­ed­ly fired on, hit­ting a Unit­ed States-based Spir­it Air­lines jet as it was land­ing at the na­tion­al air­port, in­jur­ing a flight at­ten­dant.

The US Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FAA) has banned flights to Haiti for at least the next 30 days.

“In­ter­na­tion­al flights re­main ground­ed, com­pound­ing the be­lea­guered na­tion’s sense of iso­la­tion. With the main sea­port ac­cess re­strict­ed and roads con­trolled by gangs, es­sen­tial sup­plies can­not reach the vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tion,” said the IOM.

IOM’s Chief in Haiti, Gré­goire Good­stein, said the iso­la­tion of Port-au-Prince is am­pli­fy­ing an al­ready dire hu­man­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion.

“With on­ly 20 per cent of Port-au-Prince ac­ces­si­ble, hu­man­i­tar­i­an work­ers face im­mense chal­lenges in reach­ing af­fect­ed pop­u­la­tions,” he added.

The UN said crim­i­nal groups in the cap­i­tal con­tin­ue their ex­pan­sion, tak­ing con­trol of ad­di­tion­al neigh­bor­hoods and fur­ther iso­lat­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

It said the na­tion­al po­lice force, grap­pling with a se­vere lack of re­sources, re­mains over­stretched and faces sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges in con­tain­ing the es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence.

The UN said the toll of gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence has reached cat­a­stroph­ic lev­els, with the UN hu­man rights of­fice (UN­HCR) re­port­ing near­ly 4,000 gang re­lat­ed deaths in 2024 alone.

The UN said gen­der-based vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing sex­u­al vi­o­lence used as a weapon of ter­ror, has reached “alarm­ing lev­els” and that women and chil­dren bear a dis­pro­por­tion­ate bur­den of the cri­sis, with 94 per cent of dis­placed women and girls at height­ened risk of vi­o­lence.

De­spite se­vere ac­cess con­straints, the UN said IOM con­tin­ues to pro­vide life-sav­ing as­sis­tance through mo­bile med­ical clin­ics, rental sub­si­dies for dis­placed per­sons, pro­tec­tion of ser­vices, psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port, wa­ter de­liv­ery to dis­place­ment sites and sup­ports at bor­der cross­ings.

The UN said IOM main­tains op­er­a­tions through­out the coun­try, in­clud­ing mi­grant pro­tec­tion cen­ters and com­mu­ni­ty sta­bi­liza­tion projects.

IOM em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of up­hold­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an prin­ci­ples amid the es­ca­lat­ing cri­sis and called on all par­ties to re­spect the neu­tral­i­ty and im­par­tial­i­ty of aid op­er­a­tions, al­low­ing unim­ped­ed ac­cess to those in need and safe­guard­ing the in­tegri­ty of hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance.

The UN said the hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­sponse faces a se­vere fund­ing short­fall, with the UN’s US$674 mil­lion re­sponse plan crit­i­cal­ly un­der­fund­ed at just 42 per cent.

“With­out im­me­di­ate in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port, the suf­fer­ing will wors­en ex­po­nen­tial­ly,” Good­stein stressed.

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS, Nov 19, CMC