The executive director of Unicef denounced this Thursday the “horrors” experienced by the population of Haiti, mentioning the rape of girls, houses burned down and children recruited into gangs, and called on the world not to forget this country torn apart by violence .
“Haiti has become a forgotten crisis,” accused Catherine Russell, who heads the United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF).
In Haiti, as he recently recalled upon returning from Port-au-Prince, close to half of the population, that is, some 5.2 million people, need humanitarian assistance, three million of whom are children.
“Violent armed groups control more than 60% of the capital and a large part of the agricultural area of the country,” he added.
“Haitians and our team on the ground told me that the situation has never been worse than it is today. Unprecedented hunger and malnutrition, a crippled economy, a resurgence of cholera and mass insecurity, creating a spiral of violence, while Floods and earthquakes remind us of Haiti’s vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters,” he described, before realizing that gangs use rape as a “weapon of intimidation and control,” as he witnessed.
“An 11-year-old girl told me in the sweetest voice imaginable that five men picked her up on the street. Three raped her. She was eight months pregnant when we spoke and she gave birth days later,” she broadcast.
“A woman told me that armed men entered her house and raped her. Her 20-year-old sister resisted in such a way that they killed her, burned her alive. Then they set the house on fire,” added Catherine Russell.
“Women and children are dying, schools and public places that should be shelters are not. The world, as a whole, is abandoning the Haitian people and, if we do not take immediate measures, it is difficult to imagine a dignified future for this population,” he lamented, while the Haitian government’s call to send an international intervention force to help remains unanswered. to the police.
Source: TSF
