Although the Ukraine-Russia war and the Gaza war have dominated the news, other countries have been suffering violent conflicts recently. In this ongoing series, I highlight contemporary wars and other conflicts that are too often overlooked.
Haiti remains under the domination of feuding criminal gangs, while the Haitian government is unable to assert effective control of the country. The Haitian people suffer today from both gang violence, with thousands being killed annually, and severe deprivation caused by the gangs’ disruption of daily life.
The Haitians need humanitarian aid and safe havens. Both are scarce, though, particularly as neighboring countries are increasingly unwilling to offer refuge to Haitians.
Violence and Hunger at Home
Haiti’s current crisis began over three years ago, with the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Since then, the country has lacked a legitimate, functioning government. Elections have not been held for eight years, the parliament has been dissolved, and the only governing body is a nine-member transitional council established in April 2024.[1] The transitional council has been marked by in-fighting, though, and recently went through a leadership change.[2]
At the grassroots level, Haiti’s power vacuum has been filled by organized crime, with gangs taking over much of the capital of Port-au-Prince. The gangs routinely kill and kidnap people: 4,789 people were killed in 2023 and almost 4,900 have been killed between January and September 2024.[3]
An especially violent incident was a gang attack in October on the central Haitian town of Pont-Sonde that left over 88 people dead, including infants, and forced over 6,000 people to flee. The attack was retaliation against the town’s people allegedly supporting vigilantes who interfered with gang activities.[4]
To reinforce Haiti’s overwhelmed, ineffective police force, hundreds of UN security personnel, most of them from Kenya, have deployed to Haiti. The security personnel have had some limited success in establishing control of parts of Port-au-Prince. The UN forces are out-numbered, though, and large parts of the capital remain under gang rule. The gangs also control three crucial roads linking Port-au-Prince to the rest of Haiti and have exerted their influence over smaller cities beyond the reach of the UN forces.[5]
Observing the situation in Haiti, Godfrey Otunge, the Kenyan commander of the UN forces, said “What surprised me so much when I came here is how the gangs could dare to attack in broad daylight.” Junior Lorveus, a Port-au-Prince resident forced from his home by gang violence, commented on the UN forces, “They came to help us — and we do hope they will help us — but we see no difference yet.”[6]
One Haitian man being treated for a gunshot wound at a Doctors with Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Port-au-Prince, told reporters about the constant gunfire in his neighborhood: “When [the gangs] come, you might be asleep, but then suddenly there’s shooting everywhere: rata-tata-ta.”[7]
James Gana, a Nigerian doctor in the MSF facility, comments, ““We’ve seen very, very big exit wounds; we’ve seen smaller ones; we’ve seen ricochets … we see it all.” When the violence in the city has been most intense, the hospital has admitted 16 gunshot victims per day. Dr. Gana notes that because of the dangers of leaving home, some injured people have not been able to come to the hospital for 12 hours.[8]
Even more serious than the gangs’ overt violence, though. are the disruptions to ordinary life caused by their activities. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported in October that over 700,000 people, more than half of them children, have been displaced in Haiti. Roughly a quarter of these displaced people live in Port-au-Prince and lack access to basic services.[9] The capital’s main public hospital is currently closed, for example.[10]
Hunger is also a serious problem. Gang violence has interfered with both farmers bringing their goods to market and people leaving their homes to buy food. The gangs also make delivery of humanitarian aid difficult. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the international organization that tracks food crises, reported in October that almost 6,000 Haitians are starving and another 2 million face severe levels of hunger.[11]
The non-profit Mercy Corps provided two statistics that illustrate the magnitude of Haiti’s current crisis. In 2014, 2% of Haitians lacked adequate access to food. In 2024, almost 50% do.[12]
UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric commented, “This is one of the highest proportions of acutely food insecure people in any crisis around the world.” Joceline St-Louis, a Haitian mother of two boys, 5 and 1, put it more bluntly: “Food doesn’t come around very often… When an organization does provide food, there’s a major fight.”[13]
Judeline Auguste, who depends on remittances to care for herself and her 8-year-old son, says, “It’s very rare that I can get a meal a day.” Jean Yonel, who fled gang violence along with his wife and seven children and currently struggles to make a living, says, “I can’t provide every day for these children…Sometimes we take just a spoonful of food and leave the rest of the food for the kids so they don’t die.”[14]
Doors to Safety Closing Abroad
One possible escape for Haitians from their country’s turmoil is to emigrate abroad. Opportunities to find refuge in other countries are dwindling, though.
Many Haitians have fled to Haiti’s immediate neighbor, the Dominican Republic. However, the Dominican authorities announced this fall that they would begin deporting Haitians who were in their country illegally.[15] By early November, almost 61,000 people had been deported from the Dominican Republic back to Haiti.[16]
Haiti’s Support Group for Returnees and Refugees says that, because of gang activities, some deported Haitians have not been able to return to their homes and are simply staying close to the Haitian-Dominican border. The activist group also says that people being held for deportation in the Dominican Republic are being kept without food or water in overcrowded jails, although Dominican authorities deny this.[17]
Many Haitians in the United States also face an uncertain future. The Biden administration announced in October that it would not extend a program that made it easier for Haitians and other immigrants to come legally to the United States under a status known as “humanitarian parole.” Haitians and other covered by the parole program could stay in the United States for up to two years, while seeking longer-term legal means to stay in the country. In the absence of a humanitarian parole extension, though, Haitians who cannot find some other legal means of staying may be forced to leave.[18]
While the Biden administration is opting to end the humanitarian parole option, Haitians are still able to stay in the United States under a designation known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Roughly half a million Haitians in the United States can stay here under TPS until February 2026.[19]
Haitian refugees’ situation in the United States may become more difficult under the incoming Trump administration. President-Elect Trump has suggested he might end the TPS option for Haitians.
Asked in October whether he would revoke TPS for Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Illinois, Trump replied “Absolutely I’d revoke it and I’d bring them back to their country.”[20] Whether ending TPS for Haitians will take the form of simply letting the status expire in February 2026 or some attempt by the future Trump administration to revoke existing TPS for Haitians remains to be seen.[21]
Ways to Help
The situation for Haiti’s people is dire and how to resolve it is unclear. Nevertheless, two positive steps are possible: to provide humanitarian aid to people in Haiti and to provide Haitians with a safe refuge in other countries.
To this end, American citizens should contact their elected representatives in the House (https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative) and Senate (https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm) and urge them
- to allocate funds to relief efforts in Haiti by the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies; and
- to extend and expand (contrary to the Biden and incoming Trump administrations) humanitarian parole, TPS, and other programs that allow Haitians to stay in the United States.
Americans can also send messages advocating these policies to President Biden (https://www.whitehouse.gov/get-involved/write-or-call/) and, once he is office, President Trump.
People can also donate money to organizations that provide aid specifically to people in Haiti, such as Hope for Haiti (https://hopeforhaiti.com/), or organizations with global scopes that work in Haiti, such as Action against Hunger (https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/location/americas/haiti/), Catholic Relief Services (https://www.crs.org/our-work-overseas/where-we-work/haiti), and Mennonite Central Committee (https://mcc.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/haiti). (When donating to an organization with a global scope, it might not be possible to guarantee which country your donation goes to, but all donations ultimately help the organization’s overall work, including in Haiti.)
The Haitian people are in great need. Providing aid and a safe refuge is the first step toward helping them.
Notes
[1] Al Jazeera, “Haiti Establishes Council to Choose New Leaders As Gang Violence Rages,” April 13, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/13/haiti-establishes-council-to-choose-new-leaders-as-gang-violence-rages; see also “Overlooked Conflicts: Anarchy and Agony in Haiti.”
[2] Al Jazeera, “Haiti’s Transitional Council Moves to Replace PM in Contentious Move,” November 10, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/10/haitis-transitional-council-moves-to-replace-pm-in-contentious-move; Frances Robles, “Haitian Prime Minister Is Fired, Adding to the Nation’s Turmoil,” New York Times, November 10, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/10/us/haiti-prime-minister-garry-conille-fired.html.
[3] Robles, “Haitian Prime Minister Is Fired”; “Overlooked Conflicts: Anarchy and Agony in Haiti”; “Overlooked Conflicts: Ongoing Violence at the End of 2023.”
[4] David Alire Garcia, “What’s Behind the Escalating Violence in Haiti?” Reuters, October 5, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/after-haiti-suffers-fresh-gang-massacre-whats-behind-escalating-violence-2024-10-05/; Frances Robles, “They Flew 7,000 Miles to Fight Haiti’s Gangs. The Gangs Are on Top,” New York Times, October 9, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/us/kenya-police-haiti-gangs.html; Lisa Zengarini, “The Humanitarian Situation in Haiti ‘Is Desperate,’” Vatican News, October 7, 2024, https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2024-10/humanitarian-situation-in-haiti-desperate.html.
[5] Robles, “They Flew 7,000 Miles to Fight Haiti’s Gangs.”
[6] Ibid.
[7] Tom Phillips and Etienne Côté-Paluck, “‘It’s Indescribable’: The Hospital on the Frontline of Haiti’s Devastating Gang War,” Guardian, November 9, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/09/haiti-gang-kenyan-police-force-bloodshed.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Zengarini, “The Humanitarian Situation in Haiti ‘Is Desperate.’”
[10] Robles, “They Flew 7,000 Miles to Fight Haiti’s Gangs.”
[11] Evens Sanon and Dánica Coto, “Hunger in Haiti Reaches Famine Levels As Gangs Squeeze Life Out of the Capital and Beyond,” Associated Press, October 1, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/haiti-hunger-starving-report-af625f8d80698788624dfbcc30c656a4.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Zengarini, “The Humanitarian Situation in Haiti ‘Is Desperate.’”
[16] Evens Sanon, “Haitian Activists Demand Halt to Deportations As Gang Violence and Poverty Soar,” Associated Press, November 7, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/haiti-deportations-dominican-republic-us-0ca0f181119e7a44e52366185fd7754a.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Priscilla Alvarez, “Biden Administration Won’t Extend Legal Status for Certain Migrants from Four Countries,” Associated Press, October 5, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/05/politics/biden-administration-immigration-nicaragua-cuba-venezuela-haiti/index.html; for a valuable guide to different legal immigration statuses, see Julia Smucker, “When Immigration Is a Life Issue,” Consistent Life Network blog, October 15, 2024, http://consistent-life.org/blog/index.php/2024/10/15/when-immigration-is-a-life-issue/.
[19] Elliot Spagat and Rebecca Santana, “Biden Administration Extends Temporary Legal Status to 300,000 Haitians, Drawing a Contrast to Trump,” Associated Press, June 28, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/temporary-protected-status-tps-haiti-haitians-biden-e92b8de782d2c1218dd1be1899aa926d; on TPS, see Smucker, “When Immigration Is a Life Issue.”
[20] Andrew Howard, “Trump Says He Will Remove TPS and Deport Haitian Migrants in Springfield,” Politico, October 3, 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/03/trump-haitian-migrants-deport-00182328.
[21] Sarah Matusek, “Trump Targets Temporary Protected Status. What That Could Mean for Haitians in the US,” Christian Science Monitor, November 26, 2024, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2024/1125/trump-tps-haitian-immigrants.
© 2024 John Whitehead. All rights reserved.
Peacemaking for Life 