UN rights expert urges urgent action as Haiti crisis worsens
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Sept 20 (Reuters) -The United Nations' expert on human rights in Haiti said on Friday that the situation in the conflict-hit Caribbean nation had worsened and efforts to rebuild security must be amplified as a security mission deadline fast approaches.
"The solutions are there, and they already exist. But efforts must be redoubled immediately," U.N. expert William O'Neill said as he concluded a visit to Haiti. "This enduring agony must stop. It is a race against time."
Powerful gangs armed largely with weapons trafficked from the United States have taken over most of the capital and expanded to nearby areas, driving mass displacement, food and medical shortages, record hunger and widespread sexual violence.
Its former government requested an international security mission tohelp police in 2022, and with less than two weeks left on the mission's initial one-year mandate, less than a quarter of promised troops have deployed and results remain scarce.
"The equipment it has received is inadequate, and its resources are insufficient," O'Neill said, adding that firearms and ammunition continue to be smuggled in, allowing gangs to carry out large-scale attacks and expand their territories.
Some 700,000 are now internally displaced and half of these are children, he added, up from nearly 580,000 estimated in June.
Southern areas previously not impacted by the conflict are now seeing soaring inflation, lack of key supplies and flows of displaced people, while sexual violence, child trafficking and child recruitment into gangs have all increased, he said.
Well under a third of the country's health services are functioning normally and close to 5 million people are facing severe hunger, notably in prisons where several dozen inmates have died in unsanitary, crowded cells with lack of food.
More than 8 in 10 of prisoners have not sat trials and anti-graft units have struggled to contain corruption that "corrodes the system at every level" with "almost complete impunity," he said.
So far, around 400 of at least 2,900 troops promised by a handful of countries to help Haiti's police have arrived, and just $63 million paid into the U.N.'s dedicated trust fund.
Reporting by Sarah Morland and Harold Isaac, editing by Deepa Babington
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Penafian: Entiti XM Group menyediakan perkhidmatan pelaksanaan sahaja dan akses ke Kemudahan Dagangan Atas Talian, yang membolehkan sesorang melihat dan/atau menggunakan kandungan yang ada di dalam atau melalui laman web, tidak bertujuan untuk mengubah atau memperluas, juga tidak mengubah atau mengembangkannya. Akses dan penggunaan tersebut tertakluk kepada: (i) Terma dan Syarat; (ii) Amaran Risiko; dan Penafian Penuh. Oleh itu, kandungan sedemikian disediakan tidak lebih dari sekadar maklumat umum. Terutamanya, perlu diketahui bahawa kandungan Kemudahan Dagangan Atas Talian bukan permintaan, atau tawaran untuk melakukan transaksi dalam pasaran kewangan. Berdagang dalam mana-mana pasaran kewangan melibatkan tahap risiko yang besar terhadap modal anda.
Semua bahan yang diterbitkan di Kemudahan Dagangan Atas Talian kami bertujuan hanya untuk tujuan pendidikan/maklumat dan tidak mengandungi – dan tidak boleh dianggap mengandungi nasihat kewangan, cukai pelaburan atau dagangan dan cadangan, atau rekod harga dagangan kami, atau tawaran, atau permintaan untuk suatu transaksi dalam sebarang instrumen kewangan atau promosi kewangan yang tidak diminta kepada anda.
Sebarang kandungan pihak ketiga serta kandungan yang disediakan oleh XM, seperti pendapat, berita, penyelidikan, analisis, harga, maklumat lain atau pautan ke laman web pihak ketiga yang terdapat dalam laman web ini disediakan berdasarkan "seadanya" sebagai ulasan pasaran umum dan bukanlah nasihat pelaburan. Sesuai dengan apa-apa kandungan yang ditafsir sebagai penyelidikan pelaburan, anda mestilah ambil perhatian dan menerima bahawa kandungan tersebut tidak bertujuan dan tidak sediakan berdasarkan keperluan undang-undang yang direka untuk mempromosikan penyelidikan pelaburan bebas dan oleh itu, ia dianggap sebagai komunikasi pemasaran di bawah peraturan dan undang-undang yang berkaitan. SIla pastikan bahawa anda telah membaca dan memahami Notifikasi mengenai Penyelidikan Pelaburan Bukan Bebas dan Amaran Risiko mengenai maklumat di atas yang boleh diakses di sini.
