Haiti’s violent gang takeover has created a refugee crisis inside the country. A new U.N. report details how horribly the emergency has fallen on Haiti’s children.
The report by UNICEF, the U.N.’s children’s fund, paints a dire picture for especially young children in Haiti. Gangs now rule 85% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and much of the rest of Haiti. The resulting infrastructure breakdown has led to food scarcity, meaning almost 300,000 Haitian children under age 5 will suffer malnutrition this year. Almost a million of all Haiti’s children are facing hunger.
Meanwhile, UNICEF reports the number of displaced children has almost doubled in the past year to 680,000. That’s more than half the total 1.3 million Haitians left homeless by the gang violence.
At this point, UNICEF calls the situation for Haiti’s children “terrifying.” More than 3 million of them, it said, now require emergency humanitarian assistance.
READ MORE: Haitians give cautious welcome to new international force approved by UN to tackle gangs
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