This week, the Security Council will consider a draft resolution on a new non-UN multinational mission under the UN Charter’s Chapter VII provision allowing the use of force. “This is not a typical or old kind of peacekeeping mission,” Ambassador Robert Rae of Canada, Chair of the Economic and Social Council...
The desperate situation prompted a tweet on Friday from Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths calling for an immediate end to the fighting. “This carnage needs to stop” said the UN relief chief. Major escalation In the past two weeks alone, 71 people have been killed and injured in capital...
According to UNICEF, nearly 300 confirmed cases were reported in the first six months of 2023, almost matching the total number documented over 2022 and close to three times the number in 2021. “The stories we are hearing from UNICEF staff and partners on the ground are shocking and unacceptable,”...
Haiti The security situation in Haiti “is appalling,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, recalling his recent visit to the fragile nation. He called for swift action at a time when the humanitarian needs are “soaring”. And although “there is not yet the political solution in sight”, the UN chief expressed...
“Being a child in Haiti today is harsher and more dangerous than it ever has been in living memory. The threats and hardships children face are simply unimaginable. They desperately need protection and support,” said UNICEF Haiti Representative Bruno Maes. Displacement and violence Children find themselves in the crossfire, or...
The latest integrated food security phase classification (IPC) analysis, reported on Sunday that of the total number of affected people, 1.8 million are in an emergency-level phase of need. This means that households face large food consumption gaps resulting in high acute malnutrition and excess mortality, or are forced to...
Gang violence is expanding at an alarming rate in areas previously considered relatively safe in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and outside the city, with a shocking increase in criminality and abuses, and a police force that is unable to handle the situation. At the same time, almost half the population, 5.2...
The 2023 funding appeal is the largest for the Caribbean country since the devastating 2010 earthquake and more than double the amount requested last year. The UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) said the number of Haitians who require aid to survive doubled over the past five years to 5.2 million,...
An independent expert mandate on Haiti had been created by the Council in 1995 but then discontinued in 2017. The current resolution, calling for “coordinated and targeted international action”, was sponsored by Haiti itself. Country-specific abuses As a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly, the Council examines human rights...
“Haiti can’t wait,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, World Food Programme (WFP) Country Director for the country. “We cannot wait for the scale of the problem to be expressed in deaths before the world responds, but that is where we are heading.” Half the population – 4.9 million people – are now...
“We are gravely concerned that extreme violence continues to spiral out of control in Haiti,” said Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Volker Türk. In the first two weeks of March alone, clashes among gangs left at least 208 dead, 164 injured, and 101 kidnapped....
The call comes amid reports that the situation in Haiti is deteriorating by the day, with citizens facing spiralling violence, human rights, and food emergencies, as well as a cholera epidemic. The influence of armed gangs is growing exponentially in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and beyond, reaching the Department of Artibonite,...