Geneva, Switzerland

Monday June 16, 2025

Haiti is at risk of a “humanitarian collapse” as violence involving gangs and vigilante groups increases, an official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday.

“Almost the entire capital is already under the control of armed groups. If the situation worsens, the population will have no space or place to go,” the ICRC’s head of delegation in Haiti, Marisela Silva Chau, told journalists on the sidelines of a meeting of the organization’s delegates in Geneva.

“We are very worried, because the situation is reaching a point where we could see a humanitarian collapse in the near future,” she added.

The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti has long suffered from the violence of criminal gangs, accused of murder, rape, looting and kidnapping, against a backdrop of political instability.

“There are 6 million people, half the population, in need of urgent aid, 80% of the capital under the control of armed groups, 1.3 million internally displaced persons (…) and only 40% of health structures functioning,” detailed Ms Silva Chau.

“Haiti is clearly the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere”, she said.

She explained that a change occurred last year when “200 to 300 armed groups, who had been fighting each other for years, united under the banner of the ‘Viv Ansanm’ (Living Together) coalition”.

In her view, this “paradigm shift in the dynamics of armed violence” is exerting unprecedented pressure on the population, leading to the creation of “self-defense groups made up of members of the population”.

This situation risks leading to “widespread availability of weapons” among the population, who will no longer be passive in the face of violence but “actively engaged in armed confrontation”, she warned.

“Such a situation would reduce the humanitarian space and there would be no means available to enable the population to survive”, she concluded.

The country is governed by transitional institutions and has seen a new upsurge in violence since mid-February.

Gangs, which control around 85% of Port-au-Prince according to the UN, have stepped up attacks in several areas previously beyond their control, spreading terror among the population.

This despite the partial deployment of the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Mission (MMAS) to assist the overwhelmed Haitian police.

Humaniterre with AFP