Haiti's children and women increasingly are becoming targets of kidnapping in Haiti, where a spike in such abductions is raising alarms checked by doctors at the Fontaine Hospital Center in the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince on August 4, 2023. In Cite Soleil, the largest slum in the gang-infested Haitian capital, the early days of August have brought a grim flow of skeletally malnourished children to the Fontaine Hospital Center. The community clinic, a reassuring presence in this poorest corner of Port-au-Prince for more than 30 years, offers rare respite to inhabitants who now face daily threats from the armed groups controlling much of the city.
That six-month number is close to the total registered for the entirety of last year and is triple the 2021 tally -- "an alarming spike in kidnappings," the United Nations children's agency said, adding that many women and children face "unthinkable terror" at the hands of the pervasive gangs.
"The stories we are hearing from UNICEF colleagues and partners on the ground are shocking and unacceptable," Garry Conille, the agency's regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement.
"Women and children are not commodities. They are not bargaining chips. And they must never be exposed to such unimaginable violence."
The surge in abductions, he added, threatens "both the people of Haiti and those who have come to help."
Calling the overall situation in Haiti "catastrophic," Conille said almost half the country's population, including nearly three million children, now require humanitarian assistance.
He called for "the immediate release and safe return of all those who have been kidnapped."
UNICEF had warned earlier that the political and economic chaos roiling the poorest country in the Americas has fueled a surge in malnutrition, with one child in four now chronically undernourished, many gravely so.
Conille said local healthcare systems are "teetering on the brink of collapse and schools are under attack," adding that the violent gangs made it "difficult to deliver much-needed aid."
While praising the "remarkable resilience" of Haiti's children, women and families, Conille said they continued to face "increasing, unthinkable terror."
He added: "It must stop now."
Criminal gangs control some 80 percent of capital city Port-au-Prince, and kidnappings, rape, robbery and murder have become a looming daily threat.
Kenya recently announced it was willing to lead a multinational peace force to support Haiti's overwhelmed security forces and help the impoverished country cope with its compounding crises. The United States has promised its support.
Reader Comments
UNIFEC and the RED CROSS traffic children and do there money laundering in Haiti and don't forget the Clinton crime gang right in the middle of it all making sure they get their cut too.
I remember as a kid we would collect money in cans for UNIFEC to help the children. Yeah !.. we were helping them right into the satanic bastards hands for their sex slavery and Adrenochrome harvesting, organ harvesting and then their deaths. The lies really hurt me that I thought we were helping the kids just like me. Those non humans and even the human scumbags will burn in Hell !!.. I really wish people would wake up.