The United Nations office in Haiti expressed Wednesday, May 4, its concern over the enlistment of children by gangs that plague Haiti and place, for nearly two weeks, the capital in a state of siege.
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The UN representation in Port-au-Prince "
is particularly concerned about the recruitment of minors into gangs, one of the six serious violations of the rights of the child
", she said on Twitter.
For several decades, armed gangs have been raging in the poorest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, but they have drastically increased their hold across the city and the country in recent years, multiplying murders and heinous kidnappings.
Last week, a video, which circulated widely on social media in Haiti, showed a child in his 10s, his face masked, displaying a high-caliber automatic weapon.
In this clip, shot in Martissant, a poor neighborhood in the west of Port-au-Prince totally controlled by gangs since last June, the boy explains that he is at war with the leader of a rival armed gang.
No precise human toll
The UN has denounced this enlistment of children in organized crime as clashes between gangs now also paralyze the northern and eastern suburbs of the Haitian capital.
In a second tweet broadcast on Wednesday, the United Nations office in Haiti "
condemned the violence of armed gangs since April 24 which affects the municipalities north and northeast of Port-au-Prince, killing dozens of Haitians and injuring and displacing thousands more
”.
Unable to go to the neighborhoods plagued by this violence, human rights organizations have not yet managed to establish a precise assessment of this gang war.
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In a press release released Wednesday afternoon, the Haitian civil protection estimates "
that about 9,000 people have been displaced
" from the three municipalities located in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince.
"
Forty-eight schools, five medical centers and eight markets have been closed because of the situation
," the institution said.
The national police and the government have not yet commented on this outbreak of violence which currently prevents any safe exit from the capital by road.
