This is how UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on May 17 described the situation in Haiti, where armed rival gangs have taken over large swaths of the capital of Port-au-Prince and outlying areas, controlling roads, kidnapping citizens at random, raping, killing, sometimes beheading their victims, and driving thousands of citizens from their homes to seek refuge in “shelters” that are uninhabitable. Since last year 20,000 people have been forced from their homes, with 9,000 families being added recently. Often gangs burn down their houses.
The situation has gone way beyond “depraved indifference.” This is deliberate—satanic—murder of a nation and its people. When Secretary of State Tony Blinken was asked how things looked for Haiti during a recent Congressional hearing, he could only respond, frowning, that Haiti has “a long way to go.”
At least 1,700 schools are shut down in the capital—teachers are routinely kidnapped, and it’s too dangerous for children to walk on the streets, so children are not being educated. Bruno Maes, UNICEF’s representative in Haiti, told Associated Press that “we are really seeing a strangulation of Port-au-Prince.” The only way UNICEF can reach people in need is by helicopter or boat, so often food supplies aren’t getting delivered. Child malnutrition is increasing.
