2 weeks Ago By Jacqueline Charles - Miami Herald (TNS)
The United Nations humanitarian air service in Haiti, which has served as a critical live-saving bridge between gang-controlled Port-au-Prince and the rest of the country, is “at risk of an imminent shutdown” if it doesn’t raise nearly $4 million to keep it running over the next three months, the World Food Program says. The World Food Program, which manages the flights, has launched an emergency $3.9 million appeal to maintain operations over the next three months.
The amount covers the aircraft, staffing, ground handling and aviation fuel, the leading U.N. food agency said.
Since the suspension of all commercial flights into Port-au-Prince in November, the leased U.N. helicopter and small aircraft have been the only available option to transport aid workers and U.
N. staff through Haiti. In October, the chopper was struck by gunfire as it flew over a gang-controlled neighborhood in the capital.
No one was injured and after suspending services for a few days, the service resumed operations. The following month, on Nov. 11, members of the powerful Viv Ansanm gang coalition launched several attacks across the capital and struck three U.
S. commercial planes with gunfire. The attacks led to the closure of the main Toussaint Louverture International Airport for the second time in a year, and the suspension of all passenger flights and U.
S. cargo flights to Port-au-Prince, worsening the humanitarian crisis. On Thursday, as a new contingent of Kenyan police arrived in Haiti to join the multinational security mission, Prime Minister Didier Fils-Aimé visited the airport.
Haitian authorities are hoping that security upgrades around the area will persuade the Federal Aviation Administration to lift its ban on U.S. commercial and cargo flights next month.
The ban was extended until March 12. In the meantime, the U.N.
flights are the only way aid workers and staff have to safely and reliably get around the country as they try to reach vulnerable Haitians in remote areas of the country, and also host visits of high level officials in hopes of bringing attention to the country’s worsening humanitarian and security crisis. It is also the only option for medical evacuations and staff relocations in the face of an increasingly volatile security environment. At present more than 5.
4 million people in the country are facing hunger, the U.N. says, and at least 3 million children, many of them outside of the capital, are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Last month, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council that the unceasing gang violence in Port-au-Prince and parts of the neighboring Artibonite region “is progressing, shutting down an increasing number of services that the mission depends on.
” This included access to emergency and critical medical care after gangs in December ransacked and burned down one of two hospitals the U.N. could use, leading to its indefinite closure.
About 80% of the hospitals in the Port-au-Prince area have been shut down by gang attacks. Guterres said the mission’s skeleton personnel has only a single international physician, who alternates with a nurse as part of a team at its infirmary. “Owing to a lack of insurance coverage for flying to Haiti, the existing medical evacuation contract for Port-au-Prince expired at the end of January 2025 without the possibility of renewal,” Guterres said.
The amount the U.N. is seeking will cover just three months, and comes at a time when other donors in the international community are being asked to assist Haiti amid an executive order the Trump administration has issued pausing U.
S. foreign aid for 90 days , and the subsequent gutting of the U.S.
Agency for International Development. The U.S.
is the single largest country donor to the U.N. and to Haiti, where the aid freeze is creating panic despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement that he has issued waivers on millions of dollars of programs and provided exemptions for emergency food aid and “core life saving medicines.
” In a report issued earlier this week, the U.N. said the situation in Haiti remains precarious.
For example, 82% of the more than a million people displaced in camps eat only one meal a day or go entire days without food. Displaced children and adolescents are also facing heightened risk of violence, including sexual assaults, exploitation and abuse, which has also surged 1,000% in the past year. This 10-fold rise, recorded from 2023 to last year, comes as armed groups are inflicting horrors on children, said James Elder, spokesman for UNICEF, the child welfare agency.
Elder recently returned from Haiti, where he was flown to Port-au-Prince aboard a U.N. helicopter.
“Last year alone, child recruitment into armed groups surged by 70%. Right now, up to half of all armed group members are children — some as young as eight years old,” he said. “Many are taken by force.
Others are manipulated or driven by extreme poverty. It’s a lethal cycle: Children are recruited into the groups that fuel their own suffering.” In addition to sounding the alarm on the effects of the violence on children, the U.
N. also has criticized the lack of attention by Haitian authorities on addressing the widespread human rights abuses and violations in light of several recent mass killings by armed groups. Haitian authorities have taken only minimal steps to hold perpetrators accountable, the U.
N. said. “Following the massacres in Wharf Jérémie and Pont Sondé, while police investigations were launched, no judicial action had been recorded as of December 31, 2024,” the report said.
“Similarly, regarding summary executions allegedly involving police officers, the General Inspectorate of the Police has taken almost no measures to identify those responsible.” ©2025 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.
com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC..
