The secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres, apologized to women displaced by gang violence in Haitiand regretted on Tuesday that he had failed to mobilize the world to alleviate their suffering.
In the middle of an old school Port-au-Prince which hosts more than 1,250 displaced people, Guterres, who arrived in Haiti On Tuesday morning, he sat down with some women who told him what their life has been like for almost two years in this place named “Colombia”.
“I arrived with my four children on November 13, 2024, I lost everything,” says one of them in this room of suffocating heat under the tin roofs.
The other spaces are worse. “Fifty people per classroom, ten families, no privacy“she continues, while her neighbor describes the plagues that attack them, and the children deprived of school.
“I apologize for not having been able to mobilize the international community“the head of the UN.
He regretted that “unfortunately” the humanitarian aid plan United Nations By 2026, estimated at $880 million, it will be less than a quarter funded.
These women are part of the approximately 1.5 million of people who, according to UNare today displaced due to the brutality of the gangs, which multiply murders, kidnappings, rapes and forced recruitment of children.
Nearly half of the population, some 11 million inhabitants, is in serious condition. food insecurity.
“My message to the international community: stop looking the other way. We must be next to Haiti“he insisted.
The message from the displaced people of Colombie is also very clear: “We want to go home“, shouts the crowd in Creole to the secretary general.
– In armored –
When he got off the helicopter that brought him from Saint Dominicon the other side of the Hispaniola island that Haiti share with Dominican RepublicGuterres assured the prime minister Alix Didier Fils-Aiméwho went to receive him, his “solidarity“with the population.
Crossing the streets of the capital in an armored vehicle, the secretary general, who had traveled to Port-au-Prince For the last time in July 2023, he also visited the Vertières camp, which hosts the first contingents of the brand new Gang Suppression Force (FRG)stated a journalist from the AFP who was traveling with him.
The UN Security Council decided in September to replace the Multinational Security Support Mission (MMA)directed by Kenyapoorly equipped and criticized, for this new FRGmore robust.
In full deployment, it may have up to 5,500 uniformed personnel, police but also military, unlike the MMAS. Now he has less than 1,000 men. It is not a peacekeeping mission UN.
Recently, law enforcement operations – involving Haitian police associated with drone attacks carried out by foreign private companies – and the actions of self-defense groups have managed to stop the expansion of gangs that control 90% of the capital, according to the latest report by experts appointed by the Security Councilpublished in April.
“Gang violence has caused at least 2,300 dead, 1,100 injured and 99 kidnappings since the beginning of the year,” declared the high commissioner on Monday, Volker Turk
