Archive pictures. Les Mornes, Haiti, March 2010. | © W. Daniels / HI
For months now, Haitians have been subjected to an unrelenting frenzy of violence. Even so, the people are not losing hope in a better future. Cédric Piriou, HI's Country Director in Haiti, discusses the situation facing the island and its people, whom he has known and admired for over 20 years.
It is important to understand that nowhere is safe in Haiti anymore, and civilians are the main victims of the violence. According to the official figures, some 2,500 people were killed or injured in the first quarter of 2024 alone, and there were more than 500 kidnappings. Today, even if you stay at home, there is still the risk of being hit by a stray bullet.
Gangs have attacked every public building and the streets are continually the scene of bloody clashes. These gangs have also set up roadblocks on the capital's three main roads and refusing to pay to pass through can cost you your life. Not a day goes by without people dying.
“The situation in Haiti is cataclysmic. The levels of violence are extreme: gangs descend on a district, looting homes, raping women, burning down houses with their occupants inside. The inhabitants are forced to flee. There are now over 180,000 internally displaced people in the capital, in more than twenty camps, and the State services are no longer able to provide them with any kind of support," explains Cédric Piriou, HI's Country Director in Haiti.
Haiti is facing a multi-dimensional crisis. It is difficult to identify a humanitarian priority because there are so many urgent needs. In addition to the security crisis, there are health problems. 70% of hospitals are no longer operational, so the population no longer has access to essential care. The lives of people on dialysis, pregnant women or people with HIV, for example, hang by a thread. To make matters worse, a cholera outbreak has been raging since October 2022.
"The country is also facing a severe food crisis. Haiti has the second highest rate of acute food insecurity, after the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Today, 50% of the Haitian population is food insecure, or 5 million people. Of these, 1.6 million are in a food emergency - and after the emergency phase comes famine, and famine means death."
"In Haiti, everything is unpredictable. We try to anticipate, but a neighbourhood can be very calm one minute and then, just fifteen minutes later, be set on fire by gangs. So the key word is flexibility to avoid putting our employees and the population at risk."
HI is responding to the cholera outbreak by decontaminating houses and distributing buckets and chlorine products. We are also providing food aid, mainly targeting people with disabilities living in camps for displaced people, who are often the most vulnerable. When gangs attack the camps, they are usually the last to escape.
HI also provides logistics services for all national and international organisations and UN agencies, transporting humanitarian supplies from the capital to the provinces. To get around the roadblocks, supplies are now being transported by boat to the ports along the Haitian coast.
HI is also launching an emergency project in collaboration with MSF, whose doctors are among the few, if not the only ones, still able to provide medical care to the population. As part of this collaboration, HI’s physiotherapists will take over immediately after patients have been treated - usually for bullet wounds - to provide physical and functional rehabilitation care and thus avoid long-term complications.
"Despite this catastrophic situation and an extremely complicated daily existence, the Haitian people remain hopeful and believe in a better tomorrow.”
Things can change, but it will take time. The challenge is not just to respond to crises and emergencies, but to support the restructuring of the country. Above all, security needs to be re-established. Most gang members are barely 18 years old. They were children when the terrible earthquake struck in 2010 and many of them l lost their parents. They ended up as orphans living in shantytowns, without any support... We are now paying the price for this neglect. To remedy this situation, we need more financial support from the international community, not just one-off measures. Today, the Humanitarian Response Plan is only 24% funded, and we're already in July.
The thinking behind HI's work is to support to local Haitian organisations. We work closely with 24 partner organisations, because it is by structuring Haitian civil society and NGOs that the country will be able to emerge from the crisis. That's why we are continuing to support three hospitals. While the one in Port-au-Prince is now under gang control, we are still working in Cap-Haïtien, the country's second largest city, which the gangs have not managed to take over, as well as in hospitals in the departments of Nord-Est and Sud-Est.
"For me, the solution for Haiti can only come from the Haitians. It's a fantastic country, but it's a bit of a rollercoaster. In Haiti, we don’t experience things by halves: we experience great happiness and great misfortune on a daily basis. My wife and children are Haitian, so I'll never give up hope. I want them to be able to return to their country and enjoy its many riches. Our hope is that Haiti will return to being the pearl of the Antilles."
