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STORY: UN / HAITI PRESSER
TRT: 04:10
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 27 FEBRUARY 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations headquarters
27 FEBRUARY 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Ulrika Richardson, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti:
“And it is indeed an unprecedented crisis. Every number that we, that we, that we sort of present, is a new record. And in fact, you know, it's the suffering that this is causing is immense.”
4. Wide shot, journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Ulrika Richardson, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti:
“And that brutality and extremity of the violence is really something that, to me, is really that of almost vandalizing violence and the value of the human body. And that means that people are, there is a lot of fear, trauma, fatigue among the most vulnerable. And armed gangs attack neighborhoods as they advance, and sometimes they go back, but they do attack neighborhoods quite violently. And that means that we have now over one million Haitians displaced in the country, and this is a tripling - a tripling - of last year, so we can just imagine that we are talking about a population, about you know, eleven million, so it's almost 10 percent.”
6. Wide shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Ulrika Richardson, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti:
“Human rights violations, of course, dramatic. Last year, you've seen the figure that our Human Rights Office have presented, over 5600 people were killed in Haiti last year, and that's a result of gang violence. And we have collective rape. Sexual violence is rampant. It's used not only against women, which is horrific, horrific and under very, very distressing conditions, as you can imagine, collective rape very often. But we've also seen UNICEF reports of a staggering 1000x increase in sexual violence against children between 2023 and last year. And you can imagine what this means for their future, particularly as we have only a third of health institutions in the country working fully.”
8. Wide shot, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Ulrika Richardson, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti:
“You know, this is not the time for peacekeeping. The peace is not there. We need a peace enforcement.”
10. Wide shot, journalists
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Ulrika Richardson, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti:
“On the one hand, we have, of course, the security impediment, so that very important strengthening of that sort of peace enforcement dimension of the of the multinational security support mission. But in the meantime, we need to work on, for example, what are the alternatives we can offer down here, and young people in Haiti. You know, there are no jobs around. The economy is now on the sixth consecutive year of negative growth. As you can imagine, it's not like international investors are queuing up to invest in Haiti. But it's so important that we do, you know, we can, we can link the reconstruction, once sort of security starts to improve, we need to be very ready to and this is what we've been working including with the with the International financing institutions, you know, and the UN and other actors we've been working on having a plan more or less ready to be able to address that sort of return of institutions into the different neighborhoods, and that would mean infrastructure, bringing the schools up and running health center and so that could then also try and employ young people.”
12. Wide shot, journalists
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Ulrika Richardson, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti:
“And what we are seeing is that there is increased joint operations with the National Police. And so, this is something that we hope will now intensify, particularly if there is a reinforcement of the embassies there, let's say peace enforcement capacity.”
14. Wide shot, journalists
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Ulrika Richardson, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti:
“There is definitely impact, we see the financial cup that we've been able to gather up to now is about 90 million, but that is very difficult. So, that figure can change this evening for example.”
16. Wide shot, end of press briefing
“This is not the time for peacekeeping. The peace is not there. We need peace enforcement,” said Ulrika Richardson, the UN’s top humanitarian official in Haiti, as the country grapples with an unprecedented crisis of gang violence, mass displacement, and human rights abuses.
During a press briefing in New York today (Feb 27) the UN Deputy Special Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti described the severity of violence gripping the country, highlighting the brutality of gang attacks that have displaced over one million people—a threefold increase from the previous year. “We are talking about a population of about eleven million, so it’s almost 10 percent,” she said.
Haiti’s security crisis has fueled a surge in human rights violations, with more than 5,600 people killed last year due to gang violence, according to UN data. Sexual violence, including collective rape, is widespread. “It's used not only against women, which is horrific, horrific and under very, very distressing conditions, as you can imagine, collective rape very often. But we've also seen UNICEF reports of a staggering 1000x increase in sexual violence against children between 2023 and last year,” Richardson stated.
Beyond security concerns, Haiti’s economy remains in freefall, facing a sixth consecutive year of negative growth. “It’s not like international investors are queuing up to invest in Haiti,” Richardson said, emphasizing the need for long-term economic recovery plans. She called for urgent efforts to restore infrastructure, education, and healthcare services once security conditions improve.
Despite limited resources, Richardson noted progress in joint operations between Haitian authorities and international partners. “We hope [these efforts] will now intensify, particularly if there is a reinforcement of the peace enforcement capacity,” she said.
Funding for Haiti remains uncertain, with Richardson noting that the UN has gathered about 90 million dollars so far. However, she acknowledged the difficulty in securing financial support. “That figure can change this evening, for example,” she said, alluding to the volatility of international commitments amid shifting donor priorities.
