Children in Crisis: WFP Steps In to Aid Haiti Amidst Growing Hardship

Danae Dennie

Staff Writer

#Haiti, June 25, 2024 – UN Secretary-General’s Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said that the alarm is still being sounded on the deteriorating situation in Haiti’s southern regions, as hundreds of thousands of people are now displaced.

According to the International Organization for Migration, between March and June this year, the number of people displaced across the country increased by 60 per cent, from 362,000 to more than 578,000 people.

It highlighted that more than half of all people uprooted from their homes are children.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs shared that aid organizations continue to support people displaced by violence in the capital, Port-au-Prince. As of June 12 2024, the World Food Programme (WFP) distributed more than 40,000 hot meals to over 9,000 displaced people in Port-au-Prince.

On June 7, 2024, a cargo flight operated by the WFP landed in Cap-Haïtien, carrying more than 11 metric tonnes of products for water, hygiene and sanitation activities, as well as educational materials for  the organization ‘Save the Children’.

“Hundreds of thousands of children and their families live in some of the most dangerous and besieged communes ……. A shocking 2 in 3 children need humanitarian aid in Haiti,” says Catherine Russell, Principal Advocate for Haiti for the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, and UNICEF Executive Director.

“Each day, children are being injured or killed. Some are being recruited, or they are joining armed groups out of sheer desperation,” said Russell at  the UN Security Council meeting in April.

“Recent UNICEF data indicates that anywhere from 30to 50 percent of armed groups in Haiti currently have children within their ranks,” she added.

The Secretary-General has called for the swift deployment of the Multinational Security Support mission to Haiti to support the Haitian National Police in addressing the security situation. He appealed to Member States to ensure the MSS mission urgently receives the financial and logistical support it needs to succeed.

Troops from Kenya, who will lead the multinational security mission began arriving in Haiti on Tuesday, June 25.

CAPTION:

KEYANS BEGIN LANDING IN HAITI – Tuesday June 25, saw the arrival of the first of 1,000 members of a Kenyan Forces deployment to lead the uprooting of gangs which have dangerously planted themselves in Port au Prince, the capital of the Republic of Haiti. Training in Jamaica has been underway for weeks now, as CARICOM is also partnered with the US and Canada on the UN Security Council sanctioned mission announced for activation in July 2024.