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A year ago, it seemed that Haiti had hit rock bottom. Violence had exploded and conditions had deteriorated following President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination in 2021. Then, last February, gangs banded together to free thousands of prisoners, besiege airports and police stations, and demand that Haiti’s unpopular replacement leader departed.
Ariel Henry was ousted, but the nation has only spiralled further into crisis. Violence intensified again towards the end of last year. Armed criminals control 85% of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Already desperate circumstances have become much more so: more than a million people – around one in 10 of the population – have now been displaced, triple the level a year ago. Half are experiencing acute food insecurity.
At least 5,600 people were killed in gang violence last year. The United Nations says that sexual violence against children has risen tenfold; many are being forcibly recruited into organised crime. The kidnap and murder of health workers has put around two-thirds of medical facilities out of use. Even commercial flights have largely halted after gangs opened fire on planes.
Amid all this, the United States announced on Thursday that it is scrapping temporary protection from deportation for half a million Haitians in the US, meaning that they could be removed by August. That’s hardly a surprise given the vile lies about Haitian migrants spread by President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance in last year’s election. And some deportations continued even under the Biden administration. But the announcement is no less appalling for that – and all the more so given the role of the US in the nation’s troubles over the years. A country born in such hope, in the uprising of enslaved people, has never shaken off the impact of the devastating reparations France imposed for its freedom and the years of foreign occupation and meddling that followed.
Last spring was supposed to mark a turning point for the country, with the arrival of a UN-backed and largely Kenyan-staffed security support mission, and the move to a transitional government supposed to pave the way for elections next year – more than a decade after the last polls. But the council, which contains just one token representative of civil society, has been beset by self-interested struggles, and three of its nine members face corruption charges but refuse to resign. The security mission has less than half the personnel initially envisaged, has failed to make an impact, and now Mr Trump has frozen US funding for it.
A new report by the International Crisis Group warns that elections cannot be held safely under current circumstances, and that pressing ahead with them might fuel further violence by gangs attempting to push their cronies into power. It argues that the priority for the transitional council must be focusing on basic governance.
Meanwhile, every possible legal avenue to extend protection from deportation for Haitians in the US must be employed. The US must do more to cut off the flow of arms in breach of the embargo. Humanitarian support for the nation, always inadequate and now hit by Trump administration cuts, must be properly backed. The UN’s 2024 appeal was less than half funded, leaving millions of people unsupported. With the need now far greater, it is asking for $900m. That is the least that is owed to Haitians.
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