Unni Krishnan

Gonaïves, Haiti: March 2024.

“I want to become a doctor.” In the relative comfort of a Child Friendly Space in this conflict zone in Haiti, Sylvie*,13, shared her dream.

A two-hour bumpy SUV ride from the western city of Gonaïves takes you to Gros Morne, once a picture-postcard place, impoverished now. Cutting down trees for income and to fight hunger has changed landscapes.

The children told us that armed gangs have shut down their schools. None are allowed to go to school. These young tender minds can take only so much. Missing education limits future prospects.

Gonaïves is one of the flashpoints of the escalating gang violence that has engulfed this Caribbean Island nation. A group of Plan International colleagues and I visited Gonaïves last week, thanks to a biweekly UN helicopter service, the only safe transportation.

The escalating violence in the capital Port Au Prince in the past few days forced people to shut down shops, markets, and schools. Gangs burned down police stations and fired at aircraft. International flights were cancelled. We could not return as planned.

“Going to school, to the hospital, or to the market, cultivating one’s field or getting clean water has become an ordeal for millions of Haitians. Stepping outside one’s home means risking death from bullets, being kidnapped by armed gangs, or suffering unimaginable violence such as collective rapes,” said Ulrika Richardson, UN Humanitarian Coordinator. The UN estimates that there are about 300 gangs active across Haiti.

January 2024 was the most violent month in the past two years. Zion Expo, a Haitian artists’ group expressed their anguish over the brutal violence and killing of children in an illustration of a child on his knees with an assault rifle pointed at him in close range. The illustration is an artist’s impression of a photograph taken by Ralph Tedy Erol, a Haitian photojournalist.

A Plan International Haiti study to be released ahead of International Women’s Day gives a narrative about the impact of gang violence. Separation of children from their families and poverty makes them vulnerable to sexual and gender violence.

SHIFTING HUMANITARIAN LANDSCAPE:

Sylvie and her friends remind humanitarian agencies about their first task – to stand in solidarity and call the attention of the world.

Sylvie gave us a message to relay to the world, “Get schools to function and stop the violence”. This resonates with Haiti’s Humanitarian Response Plan for 2024, launched by the UN and the nation’s government in February last week in Port Au Prince. The plan calls for protection, particularly for women and girls who have suffered or are at risk of gender-based violence. An ambitious, yet under-funded UN plan aims to assist 3.6 million people who need urgent and life-saving humanitarian assistance.

A new map of the UN’s World Food Programme shows that gang violence has decimated Artibonite, the nation’s food basket. Local farmers have abandoned over 3,000 hectares of land in 2023 and moved to less fertile, safer areas. Away from the headlines, Haiti ranks among the countries most affected by hunger, with disasters, climate change and the pandemic’s economic impacts. Armed violence makes the country even more risk-prone.

Children make up almost 55 per cent of the people displaced. Children should be school-bound, carrying a backpack or playing football. They told us armed gangs have recruited some of their friends. Some carry guns and now fighting someone’s else crimes. Imagine children in New York, London, or Sydney in such a context.

LIFE GOES ON:

Visits to Haiti leave you with mixed feelings. Amidst storms, earthquakes, and violence, you meet some of the most resilient children here.

I have always admired the local volunteers. With bare hands and unflinching grit, they pull out fellow Haitians from rubbles and mudslides much before international aid arrives on the scene.

Most of my earlier visits here have been to support Haitian humanitarian workers, timed either after catastrophic storms or while Haitians are getting ready to embrace the next big one.

I remember meeting a grandmother in Gonaïves following a hurricane in 2004. While talking to me, she held a packet firmly in her arms, as if she feared someone would snatch it from her. It contained schoolbooks. Each storm takes the books away and she can’t afford to keep buying books for her grandchildren. She rents them, two days a week.

Storms are the rule here. Haiti is forever recovering from one or preparing to embrace the next. The storms are turbocharged by climate change, making them often more ferocious or frequent. Haiti’s breathing space is fast decreasing.

At the child-friendly spaces, children play, sing, and engage in theatre, art, recreational and educational activities.

Half the households of Haiti’s over 11 million people are trapped in absolute poverty and live on less than a dollar a day. Shortages are the norm, and food prices soar every time there is a shock.

It is a tough terrain and access to villages is difficult. While flying in the comfort of an aged and rusted UN chopper, the co-pilot gave some simple instructions before lifting off—(1) no need to switch off the cell phone while flying and feel free to talk, if you can beat the noise of the chopper, (2) put the ear plugs on, it will be noisy; (3) fasten seat belts and lock all of the four clips, it will be bumpy and (4) stay calm.

“Welcome to Haiti!”

*Name changed.

Edited version of this blog also appeared in The WEEK and Plan International.

HAITI’S CHILDREN CALL FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD