New survey reveals extreme levels of violence in Haiti’s capital

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), January 2024 was the most violent month in Haiti in more than two years, with at least 806 people killed, injured or kidnapped in the country. The situation has deteriorated even further since, and on 28 February, Port-au-Prince descended into chaos, with dozens of injured people crowding MSF facilities.

“When you’re the father of a family and you see a two-year-old girl arriving with a bullet wound, it’s really shocking,” says an MSF staff member working in Haiti. “It’s shocking to see schoolchildren, who have nothing to do with the gangs, be shot at and have bullets in their bodies.” 

Between 2022 and 2023, the number of homicides in Haiti doubled, while kidnappings increased by 83 per cent, according to a recent report by the UN Secretary-General.United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti : report of the Secretary-General, 15 January 2024 However, it is likely that the real scale of the violence is much higher, as the findings of Epicentre’s survey far exceed the official figures. In 2023, for example, the UN reports more than 4,700 homicide victims across Haiti, while the Epicentre survey reports more than 2,300 violent deaths in Cité Soleil alone, despite it being home to just nine per cent of the capital’s population.