Report by the Justice and Peace promoter

of the Province of Toulouse

Brother Ignace BERTHOT op

1. Introduction

Since the founding of the Haitian nation in 1804, Haiti has wanted to be a symbol, a land of freedom that should be a humanizing and livable space, a sign of hope for all. However, a large number of its own sons and daughters are becoming displaced. There are many reasons for this, but three in particular stand out: poverty, natural disasters and insecurity. A considerable number of Haitians have fled abroad, and are therefore externally displaced. The latter are not an integral part of this article. However, we cannot simply ignore them. They immigrate mainly to the USA, Chile, Brazil and the Dominican Republic. What interests us here are the internally displaced. That’s why we’re only dealing with the situation of displaced people, especially in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. This is what we intend to help you understand in what follows. To understand it, it is necessary to present the global context of these internally displaced persons according to the UN, the situation of the displaced in Haiti and the consequence on the poorest and this article will be concluded by the request of solidarity to the cry of distress of the Haitian people.

2. Reminder: internal displacement according to the UN

When we talk about the displacement of populations, we most often think of the displacement of people from their own countries. There are many causes for this, and they are not mutually exclusive: poverty, political instability, persecution or natural disasters… These are all present in Haiti. But there is another form of population displacement, that which occurs within a country, such as the well-known rural exodus. Other factors lead to internal migration, such as natural disasters or wars. This phenomenon is growing exponentially. Between 2008 and 2012, 144 million people were internally displaced by natural disasters. Following the floods that hit northeast India and Nigeria, a considerable wave of people were displaced.

Guiding principles on internally displaced persons were drawn up in 1998 by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Internally Displaced Persons. According to these principles, internally displaced persons are defined as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural disasters”.

Guiding principles on internally displaced persons were drawn up in 1998 by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons. According to these principles, internally displaced persons are defined as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border” (UNHCR 1998).

The situation or living conditions of the displaced are complex. Displaced people are forced to abandon their homes, uprooted from their living environment against their will. They face serious problems, such as a lack of essential or basic support at all levels and in all aspects of their lives. They are doubly victimized: they are forcibly expelled from their homes, and once on the streets they are seen as outcasts, marginalized from society. Don’t they have the “right to have rights”? 

3. In Haiti

For more than a decade, the Haitian population has been confronted with a social situation that has continued to grow and worsen, and which can be described as a phenomenon: that of the “internally displaced”. It’s a phenomenon that invites us to compare the populations of certain areas of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, to nomads. 

The large waves of internally displaced people have been gathering momentum in Haiti since the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010. The Groupe d’Appui aux Rapatriés & Réfugiés (GARR) estimates that the 2010 earthquake displaced 1.3 million people. Hurricanes, other earthquakes (e.g., 2021) and floods have continued, but their effects have been amplified by a growing phenomenon of generalized insecurity in the capital, Port-au-Prince. In recent years, armed gang conflicts have led to a phenomenon of insecurity and instability, completely disrupting the ordinary and normal course of social life, especially for those who have come to be known as “internally displaced persons” in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. This phenomenon of insecurity is driven by the political interests of partisans and commercial monopolies. 

According to the latest estimates by the Direction Générale de la Protection Civile and the IOM, in June 2023, instability and insecurity have caused the displacement of 200,000 Haitians in the country, including around 131,000 within Port-au-Prince. A significant proportion of the population – almost 2% – has become involuntarily nomadic within the country. If we consider only the displaced within Port-au-Prince, this represents 1% of the total population and almost 4.5% of the population of the Port-au-Prince conurbation). This situation is a source of anxiety for all Haitians. 

The gang war is causing thousands of displaced people, and a cycle of physical violence has been perpetrated in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, particularly since 2018. It has also caused the death of several hundred people. Following such a disaster caused by gang violence, the country has seen an accelerated upsurge in violence and crime, especially in the neighborhoods of: Grand-ravine, Bel-Air, Lassaline, Ruelle Mayard, Cite-Soleil, Tibwa, Carrefour-feuille, Martissant, Petite Rivière de l’Artibonite, Croix-des-Bouquet, Petit- Goâve, Torcel, Tabarre, Saut -d’eau, Mirebalais, in other towns across the country, etc. This is indeed the global context of the internally displaced in Haiti. Since January 2023, gang warfare has caused “More civilians [to] die in Haiti than in Ukraine”, exclaims Frantz Duval in Le Nouvelliste . Violence is on the increase every day, and hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are being hunted down by gang-related violence, often fighting each other.