Port-au-Prince, Haiti – One Haitian leader on Thursday called on the world to help his troubled Caribbean country fight what he characterized as a war between merciless gang violence and widespread hunger.
Laurent San Sier, director of Haiti's transitional presidential council, told the United Nations General Assembly in New York that people need immediate action as they are dying every day in Haiti.
“From here on a four-hour flight, there's a human tragedy unfolding,” he said. “Every day, innocent lives disappear. …The whole neighborhood is disappearing.”
“It's important to say this. Haiti is experiencing war, a war between criminals who want to impose violence as a social order and an armed population fighting for human dignity and freedom,” Saint Said said.
The violence between the country's gangs and police killed more than 3,100 people between January and June, and another 1,189 injured, according to the United Nations.
Mayhem has driven out more than 1.3 million people across Haiti in recent years, but more than half of Haiti's nearly 12 million residents were expected to experience severe hunger throughout the first half of the year.
Refugees settle in possible locations, such as shelters found by Kettier Jean Charles and her family in the capital, Port-au-Prince, in the shelter of Delmas 31 low-income area. Though not as safe as before, it is still a shelter compared to the Sorino neighborhood she ran through the beauty salon. Now it's a ghost town after the gang drove most of the rest of the locals in November.
“I used to sleep in bed, I used to do my own business, my kids went to school, and now I'm living this devastating life,” Charles said.
Charles (34 years old) is over seven months pregnant – she doesn't take exactly weeks or weeks – and lives with her husband and three children in a house made of four plastic sheets with tarps for the roof. She gets some help from a nearby relative, and the family fights for scraps of food served at the shelter.
“I'm asking for help so I can get out of this situation,” Charles said, wiping tears. “I came here and it was very humiliating because I didn't have the money.
Last year, a non-support mission led by Kenyan police officers began operations in Haiti.
But more than a year has passed, the mission still has under 1,000 people, well below the 2,500-expected trust fund, with a $112 million.
The United States and Panama urged the UN Security Council to approve Haiti's 5,550 new forces.
“It's important to mobilize a strong force with clear missions and proper material, logistics and financial resources,” he said.
In Sorino's former neighborhood, with several shops, businesses and even a health clinic, the gang took everything they could, including electrical wiring, toilets, and lighting fixtures. Now, almost every home has walls filled with burnt bullets.
“All I dream of now is to leave this camp so my kids can go to school and contribute to society,” Charles said.
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The story was reported by San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press videographer Pierre-Richard Luckama contributed to Port-au-Prince in Haiti.