Haiti: In Port-au-Prince, more than 50,000 people have fled gang violence

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 50,000 people have fled the metropolitan area of ??Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, in three weeks to seek safety from the escalation gang attacks. They mainly joined the departments of the Great South, which already welcomed 116,000 displaced people who had fled in recent months. The previous IOM figure showed 33,000 people having fled between March 8 and 20.

The destination provinces of the displaced “do not have sufficient infrastructure and the host communities do not have sufficient resources that can allow them to cope with these massive displacement flows coming from the capital,” argued the IOM.

According to this data, 68% of these more than 50,000 people were already internally displaced people who had often first sought refuge with relatives within the metropolitan area. Some had even already been moved twice, three times or more. The vast majority (83%) of those interviewed by IOM for this data collection said they were leaving the capital because of the violence and 59% said they would stay away “as long as necessary”.

Humanitarian crisis

Haiti has been ravaged for decades by poverty, natural disasters, political instability and gang violence. Since the end of February, they have joined forces to attack police stations, prisons, the airport and the seaport in an effort to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Highly contested, he announced on March 11 that he would resign to make way for a “presidential transitional council.”

But, three weeks later, this council has still not been formed, due to disagreements between political parties and other actors who must appoint the next prime minister, and doubts regarding the very legality of such a body.

In a statement released Monday, Mr. Henry’s office said the council had not yet been formed because the Haitian Constitution did not authorize its creation. Meanwhile, gang violence continues and the population faces a serious humanitarian crisis, with shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods.