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“I ask your forgiveness”: facing women displaced by gang violence in Haiti, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lamented on Tuesday that he had failed to mobilize the world to ease their suffering.
In the middle of an old school in Port-au-Prince that is hosting over 1,250 displaced people, Antonio Guterres, who arrived in Haiti Tuesday morning, sat down with a few women who told him what their lives have been like for nearly two years in this site called ‘Colombie.’
‘I arrived with my 4 children on November 13, 2024, I lost everything,’ one of them says, in this stiflingly hot room under the tin roofs. But the other rooms are worse. ’50 people per room, ten families, no privacy,’ she continues, while her neighbor describes ‘the vermin and bedbugs,’ and the children being deprived of school.”I apologize for not having been able to mobilize the international community,” the UN chief told them. “We know how much you have suffered; I am here mainly to listen to you,” he continued, lamenting that “unfortunately” the UN humanitarian aid plan for 2026, totaling $880 million, is funded at less than a quarter.
These women are among the roughly 1.5 million people who are now, according to the UN, displaced because of the brutality of gangs that are multiplying murders, kidnappings, rapes, and forced recruitment of children.Armored visit
Nearly half of the population of around 11 million people is also facing severe food insecurity.
“The humanitarian situation is desperate, but there are faint glimmers of hope,” commented Antonio Guterres on X upon his arrival in Port-au-Prince for this “solidarity” visit to Haiti.
“My message to the international community: stop looking away. We need to stand with Haiti,” he emphasized.
The message from the displaced people at the Colombia site is also very clear. “We want to go home,” the crowd shouts in Creole to the Secretary-General.Upon stepping off the United Nations helicopter that arrived from Santo Domingo, on the other side of the island of Hispaniola that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, Antonio Guterres immediately assured Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who came to greet him, of his ‘solidarity’ with the suffering population on Tuesday morning. Traveling through the streets of the capital in an armored vehicle, the Secretary-General, who last visited Port-au-Prince in July 2023, also visited the Vertières camp, which hosts the initial contingents of the brand-new Gang Suppression Force (FRG), according to an AFP journalist traveling with him. On the agenda were a review of Chadian troops, a visit to the military quarters with bunk beds, and a meeting with General Erdenebat Batsuuri, who recently took up his role as the force’s commander.The UN Security Council had decided in September to replace the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MMAS), which was under-equipped and criticized, with this new, more robust FRG.
