UNITED NATIONS, March 7 (Xinhua) -- The UN representative for Haiti is encouraging an immediate deployment of a non-UN international police contingent in the face of unprecedented gang violence, a UN spokesman said on Thursday.

"On the humanitarian situation, I can tell you that despite limited access because of the obvious insecurity, we and our partners are using every window of opportunity to deliver aid," said Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Additionally, the healthcare system is near collapse.

Gang violence has raged in the capital of Port-au-Prince since the weekend with demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who had left the country for Nairobi to sign an accord paving the way for the dispatch of 1,000 Kenya police officers for Haiti.

The Kenya force is the keystone of the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, which is authorized by the world body but not a UN mission. Henry is in Puerto Rico because the Port-au-Prince airport came under gang attack and has been closed, and a curfew has been imposed over the country.

Dujarric said the head of the UN mission in Haiti, Maria Salvador, told a private Security Council session on Wednesday that she underscored the need for urgent action, particularly in supporting the immediate deployment of the MSS mission, to address the insecurity facing the Haitian people and to prevent the country from plunging even further into chaos, as gang violence in Haiti has reached unprecedented levels.

"Salvador remains in close contact with the Prime Minister of Haiti, the government and other stakeholders from across the political spectrum to encourage a peaceful and constructive inter-Haitian dialogue to promote a nationally owned political solution to this crisis," the spokesman said.

While he said the world body had yet to receive an official notification from Kenya, as required by the enabling Security Council resolution, he recalled President William Ruto of Kenya publicly said his country is ready to deploy police officers for the MSS in Haiti.

"Last Friday, following the signing of a reciprocal agreement between Kenya and Haiti that paved the way for a deployment of Kenyan police officers to Haiti, President Ruto announced that his country was 'ready for this deployment,'" Dujarric said.

The spokesman said that since March 3, the World Food Programme (WFP) and its partners have delivered more than 7,600 hot meals to displaced men, women, and children living in displacement sites. The International Organization for Migration has distributed shelter material to more than 650 displaced families.

Dujarric said humanitarian partners also provide psychosocial support to children and their families through telephone hotlines.

"Many health facilities have closed or have drastically reduced their operations due to a worrying shortage of medicine and the ability of staff to get to the hospitals where they are most needed," he said. "There is also a reported shortage of medical equipment, along with blood, beds and staff to treat patients with gunshot wounds from areas around Port-au-Prince."

The spokesman said the ambulatory emergency center of Doctors Without Borders in the Turgeau neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, which had been closed since December of last year, reopened on Wednesday.

"The insecurity has also forced our colleagues from the WFP to suspend their maritime transport service, which is currently the only means of transporting food and medical supplies for humanitarian and development organizations from Port-au-Prince to the other parts of the country," Dujarric said.

The spokesman said 24 trucks with equipment, medical supplies, and other food were stuck at the capital city's port, adding that the WFP's humanitarian air service was also grounded due to the activities at the airport. Many schools remain closed in Port-au-Prince, Delmas, Petionville, Croix-des-Bouquets and Carrefour.

"The humanitarian community continues to call on all parties to stop the violence and to allow safe, unimpeded access of humanitarian assistance to everyone who needs it and there are a lot of people who need it urgently," Dujarric said.

In a pitch for more aid funds, he said the country's 674 million U.S. dollar Humanitarian Response Plan has received only 17 million toward the goal. Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)