Haiti's dire humanitarian situation was thrust back into the spotlight after gang members attacked an Oklahoma-based missionary group operating in the capital, Port-au-Prince, killing two Americans and the Haitian head of the group, Mission in Haiti.
The attack left many questioning why American missionaries were still operating in Haiti, given the immense violence that has paralyzed the country and that gangs control much of Port-au-Prince. Thursday's episode followed the 2021 kidnapping of 17 missionaries working in Haiti with Christian Aid Ministries. Haitian gangs kidnapped 16 Americans and one Canadian in the attack. Weeks later, 12 of the hostages escaped and the rest were released.
Violence and instability are not uncommon in Haiti, but the situation has worsened significantly since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. Since then, the state has collapsed and gangs have proliferated to fill the void.
The killings this week come as a Kenyan-led force, funded by the United States and other members of the international community, is due to arrive in Haiti within weeks to confront gangs and help stabilize the country.
The gangs now control much of the capital, including vital infrastructure such as national highways and ports, allowing them to block the import of basic foodstuffs and other necessities for a country with very little production and highly dependent on foreign goods.
What is the current humanitarian situation?
Today, gangs control or exert influence over about 90 percent of the capital, according to the research group. In many ways, Port-au-Prince is a giant open-air prison, with most of its six million people unable to move freely and with gang violence dominating their daily lives.
According to the latest UN statistics, between March 1 and May 20, gang-related violence killed 1,160 people across Haiti, including 136 women and 35 children. There were also 294 kidnappings, including six children, during the same period.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 160,000 people are currently displaced in the capital area.
In March, the organization reported that 15,000 Haitians had fled in one week, many of them from previous gang violence. In a matter of weeks between February and March, 10 shelters were completely emptied by people fleeing “successive waves of violence,” the IOM said in a statement.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), around 59 percent of the country's population lives below the poverty line and nearly one in four children suffers from chronic malnutrition.
What is the history of aid organizations?
Aid groups have worked in Haiti for decades but stepped up their efforts after the devastating 2010 earthquake that destroyed much of the capital and killed about 300,000 people.
The international community has pumped roughly $13 billion into Haiti since the quake, but rather than helping the country rebuild, some experts say that has weakened Haiti's institutions and contributed to the country's current collapse.
“Individual aid projects are nice and they may help, but they're part of a much broader system that weakens the state, undermines capacity and contributes to what's happening now,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research think tank and author of “The Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle for Control of Haiti.”
“It is in many ways the absence of state presence, the absence of capacity, that has led to the rise in violence and insecurity, and that is largely the result of aid programs,” he said.
Aid groups say they are preventing Haiti's already dire situation — including mass unemployment, widespread sexual violence and malnutrition — from worsening. Some aid workers blame international governments for Haiti's current instability, saying the country has collapsed due to poor governance by corrupt politicians.
After the 2010 earthquake, then-USAID Administrator Rajiv J. Shah said nearly half of all families in the United States donated to Haiti relief efforts. Wyclef Jean, the famous Haitian-born musician, organized a major donation drive, raising about $16 million but was accused of squandering much of it.
UN peacekeepers who deployed to Port-au-Prince from 2004 to 2017 were accused of fathering hundreds of children and then abandoning them and their Haitian mothers. Other peacekeepers were accused of running a child prostitution ring. The UN peacekeeping mission also helped spark a deadly cholera epidemic that killed at least 10,000 people and infected hundreds of thousands.
Haiti is filled with aid groups, but the Christian aid groups that are widespread in the country – often run by missionaries – are among the most controversial.
What is the controversy surrounding the missionary group in Haiti?
Although missionaries in Haiti have launched several successful projects to feed, clothe and educate the population, especially children, they are often viewed with extreme distrust by the Haitian people.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, several missionaries who were running orphanages were arrested on suspicion of child trafficking. Ten missionaries were jailed for attempting to take 33 children to the United States without papers.
Many missionary organizations have come under fire for their practice of sending outside volunteers, often from the U.S. Critics argue that these organizations create patronage-like arrangements that make Haitians totally dependent on foreign aid provided by the U.S. and neglect to build local capacity, only perpetuating poverty in the country.
How dangerous is the country for aid groups?
very.
While in other places, armed groups are ideologically driven and often tolerate or support the efforts of aid groups to help the population, Haiti's gangs exist solely for their own profit and gratification, preying on civilians through extortion and rape, for example.
Gangs once had the stronger moral fiber, allowing aid workers to operate largely unhindered, but that has changed since the state collapsed in 2021.
“Ten years ago, people were generally respectful, whether you were Haitian, foreign or a missionary,” said Pierre Esperance, executive director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights, a Port-au-Prince organization. “Now the gangs have no respect for aid groups, or any organization in Haiti.”
Over the past three years, gangs have attacked and seized relief distribution centers, schools and hospitals, in some cases leading schoolchildren to raise funds to pay ransoms for their classmates.
But aid efforts are also complicated by gangs' control over ports. They control some of Haiti's most important ports as well as the roads in and out of the capital's ports, disrupting fuel shipments and paralyzing the country, often preventing aid groups from distributing vital supplies like food and medicine.
As a result, inflation is raging across Haiti, causing prices of basic food items like rice to skyrocket.
Will the recent killings force aid groups to withdraw?
impossible.
Aid groups continue to work in Haiti despite the difficulties and dangers that many have faced over the years.
“When there is a need, that's when we're called to work,” says Allen Joseph, a Haitian who is programs director for Mercy Corps, one of the largest international aid groups working in Haiti, “and in Haiti, there is always a need.”
Joseph and other aid workers said the recent violence against missions in Haiti will likely lead their own aid groups to step up security measures, which will cost more.
As violence escalated last year, Joseph said, Mercy Corps had to adjust operations to ensure the safety of its staff, most of whom are Haitian. Each Mercy Corps office in Haiti now has “hibernation kits,” in case staff become trapped by the violence and are unable to return home, Joseph said. Each kit contains items such as a mattress, sheets, cooking utensils and hygiene products.
Earlier this week, living quarters for Mercy Corps' international staff were caught in the crossfire of gang violence, forcing staff to take cover on the floor, crawl on their stomachs, or seek refuge in bathrooms — often the safest places in a building because they have few windows — as bullets flew past them.
“No one is safe. We live and work every day in fear of being kidnapped or killed by armed groups,” Joseph said.