UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OCHA Press Conference: Ulrika Richardson on situation in Haiti

Good morning.

Welcome to this press briefing of the UN Information Service here at Geneva.

Today is Tuesday, 12th of December.

And as you know, we are starting our briefing a little bit earlier because we have the privilege to have with us Ulrika Richardson, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General at the United Nations Integrated Office in AET and Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator to give us an update on the humanitarian situation in AET.

Just a couple of points.

After that, Mrs Richardson has finished, we will continue with the normal press briefing.

We will have just a little interruption between the two.

And I will start this briefing on AET by reminding you that yesterday night we have circulated the statement attributable to the spokesperson for the Secretary General on IET where he said the Secretary General is concerned over the limited progress in the Inter Asian Dialogue towards a lasting and inclusive political solution to restore the country's democratic institutions.

The Secretary General said he extends his full support to the efforts of the CARICOM Eminent Persons Group and to be known to facilitate sustainable and nationally owned solution to ITS political crisis.

The Secretary General looks forward to the continued preparations for the deployment of urgently needed security support to the Asian National Police through a Multinational Security Support Mission as authorised by Resolution 2699 of this year.

The Secretary General underlines the importance of an agreement on the restoration of democratic institutions, providing for credible, participatory and inclusive elections to achieving sustainable rule of law and security.

He appeals to the full range of political actors and stakeholders in IET to come together and reach a broad consensus as a matter of priority.

And as I said, this is the spokesperson of the Secretary General.

You have the full text in your mailbox.

And now I'm really pleased to give the floor to Missus Richardson to hear more about the humanitarian situation in IET.

Missus Richardson.

Good morning.

Thank you very much for being here this morning and giving me the opportunity to brief you on on Haiti.

And I would like to also thank Alessandra for for also reading the important message from the Secretary General of last night.

So as we speak, Haiti is probably going through one of its most difficult times in recent history.

For many Haitians, daily life is not only a a striking struggle to find food to put on the table for their families, but it's also a matter of life and death.

Many go to great risk of just leaving their house, going about a normal life, risking being caught in line of fire, risk being kidnapped, risk being lynched, risk being raped.

And very often that happens.

In fact we have seen just in in these first eleven months of 2023, we've seen 8000 killings, lynchings, kidnappings and ****, very often collective ****, often targeting of course women, but also young girls.

In fact, we see a lot of young girls and I've met 14 year olds that already are mothers as a result of **** by very heavily armed gangs, very brutal.

Often Haiti as a result of, of years of, of unfortunate cementation of impunity and of corruption across the board, but also de investment in, in, in the economic in, in economic opportunities of the country.

It has it is today facing the situation of absolute brutal violence.

We often think that we've reached and many Haitians often think that we've now reached the, the, the very, the peak of violence.

And then we see just the next week even more brutal.

So Haiti in fact is spiralling into a very serious, we can call it a human rights crisis, we can call it a protection crisis overall, simply to say that it's a multi dimensional crisis.

In fact, it has an impact on of course the humanitarian situation.

We have in fact 5.2 million Haitians today that are in need of humanitarian assistance.

We have, we have 4.35 million people that face acute food insecurity and that's a staggering figure.

It is 2 out of five Haitian that face acute food insecurity.

In fact, it's impacting everyone, of course, those most vulnerable and in particular children.

In fact we have a 30% increase in acute severe child malnutrition and you can imagine what that means for children, 30% increase.

Already we have as a result of the violence, many of the armed gangs that many of very often are well organised with a certain control and command.

They invade neighbourhoods and as a result people have to flee their homes, fear, fearing their life, obviously their families and this has created also a rapid acceleration in terms of people displaced people.

We have 200,000 in the country, 143,000 owned in the capital alone, which is of course a very large number.

In fact, when we look at the capital, it is the most affected by the gang violence.

We consider that about 80% of the capital is controlled by or influenced by these gangs.

We also consider that it's there is around 300 gangs in the country and in fact it is spreading now beyond the capital, particularly to the Actibonit department, which is in fact the bread basket.

It used to be the bread basket of Haiti.

And in fact, we need to note, note as well that even though we have this staggering figures around food insecurity, Haiti used to be food sovereign.

It was a country that produced all it's food.

It in fact, it exported food and now it is dependent on food imports.

But we are also trying as the UN to change this optic even in this dire situation.

So not only are we, not only are we working on humanitarian assistance, we have a very strong humanitarian country team, very engaged colleagues, both UN but also NGOs, national and international.

And we have managed to have access to one of two to the most difficult areas where not even the the Haitian state is present.

And that access is very precious.

It is very life saving in fact for the population.

But we also try to go beyond humanitarian assistance and really work in this cross pillar collaboration in the space between development and humanitarian.

For example, stimulating local food production in the South and in the north to be able to, for example, furnish the the very essential school feeding programme with local products.

And that means that we also stimulate, of course, local economy.

Children get a very nutritious meal and All in all it's really a positive circle.

So we have this situation in fact of paradox with very striking, painful, very heartbreaking facts and this situation of violence and and really grim brutality that the gangs are are exposing the population to.

But we also have this sensation of hope and that things are possible.

In fact, a great frustration for the UN family and also for the humanitarian community in Haiti is that we don't have sufficient funding.

We have, we are now up to 33% in terms of funding for our humanitarian response plan of this year.

So already we are now working on our next year's humanitarian response plan, but 33% that really sort of crunches us to really think that we could do so much more if we had more funding.

Now with that maybe also just a very brief note on and why we're also hopeful and something that many Haitians, most Haitians in fact welcome quite openly is of course this expression of solidarity and the resolution 2699 that was passed in October this year for the deployment of a multinational non UN self sustained security support mission.

And we are very grateful for Kenya for taking the lead and very generously pledging the thousand police officers.

There are other countries both in the Caribbean region and the CARICOM members, but also Central and Latin America, of course, the Africa continent.

They have been also expressing a significant interest to contribute, but also countries in in Europe.

So we have a really I would say quite a significant multinational expression of solidarity.

We hope that this security support will arrive to Haiti as soon as possible.

You will have noticed that the Kenyan parliament gave the green light and now it has to go through the the **** Court in Kenya for a final, let's say, endorsement before these police officers can be deployed to Haiti.

Maybe a final note to say that on the 26th 99 when you read, you will see very strong mentioning of the human rights dimensions of this support and in fact the human rights due diligence, the also child protection, looking at the whole gender dimension of, of the very striking violence in Haiti, but also of course prevention of sexual exploitation and *****.

So as I said, it's a non UN mission, but we as the UN family along with other members of the international community realise that we have to really approach this with a comprehensive plan to assist Haiti, to accompany Haiti.

The the return of state institutions, state control in many of these areas where the state is not present, services, basic services including water and sanitation, health and education of course, but also looking at the justice system and the correction system.

Prisons in Haiti are chronically overcrowded up to 300% and unfortunately the greater majority of of inmates, if you wish have are there on a pretrial basis.

In fact, only 3% of prisoners that leave prison in Haiti has ever seen a sentence.

So we are working with the government, with other, with public institutions, with across the international community in Haiti to really approach and make sure that we assist Haiti maximise the arrival of this very important and needed multinational security support mission.

I will end there and I am ready to take questions.

Thank you very much, Ulrika, for this interesting and dire briefing.

And I'll start with Chris VOG.

Chris is our Chief of Office of the IP Bureau.

Hello, thank you for taking my questions and for the briefing.

No, I just prefer it's, it's just easier.

So anyway, the, you said that the, the funds you're asking for the IT was only 33% funding.

Could you tell us how much you ask and how much you need for next year?

It's just one, one question.

The the 2nd and more important one is when do you expect the police force to arrive and what gives you a sense of hope that they will be able to work in an environment they have, I have no idea of how are they.

I mean there is nothing more difficult than policing a place that you don't know.

So I would like to to give us some some details on that, how you think it's going to work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Urika.

Pardon.

I should be able to see Mike.

No Parley, no Mike.

Thank you very much for that question.

So currently the HRP for which we have the 33% funding and that's a total amount of 720 million.

We are currently finalising the the amount for 2024 and that will be slightly less.

We are trying to be more targeted.

We're trying to be more specific in the humanitarian assistance and of course making considerable investment into this space, the cross pillar collaboration, the space between humanitarian and development.

Now coming to the, the, the multinational security mission, we of course it's very difficult to to have an estimation of when they will arrive to Haiti.

That depends very much on on the Kenyan now judiciary and and of course a lot of other elements such as the funding.

But, but we would expect and we would hope that they would be able to arrive during the first quarter of 2024.

In fact, as we speak, there is already a mission in Haiti.

Of course the Kenyans have visited Haiti.

There is an ongoing very intense exchange of information.

In fact, the Kenyan delegations that come to Haiti, they're, they realise and they're very aware of the fact that they, that the Haiti situation is new to them.

So they are very thirsty for information and, and they do get briefed very extensively both in New York as well as in Nairobi.

We have teams in Nairobi working with the Kenyan police also on establishing a pre deployment training package.

So there is a lot of exchange already happening.

Of course, this is going to be a very complex operation, but we hope that with the totality of contributors, many with experience in the region, we hope that that will actually prove to be a very fruitful exercise that would indeed help Haiti to tackle the violent, the violence created by the armed gangs.

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I give the floor to my break, our correspondent of the news.

Thank you very much for taking my question.

I will ask it in French.

I think it's easier for my colleague.

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Merci Pardo Antonio Broughto, Spanish News Agency Thank.

You very much my question is concerning the message yesterday given by Secretary General Mr Guterres saying that he's concerned about the limited progress in in the inter Haitian dialogue, but he didn't elaborate.

Do you know what are the obstacles to this dialogue, and do these obstacles affect the deployment of the security mission and the entry of humanitarian aid?

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much muchas Gracias.

Yes.

So the political dialogue, in fact, as always, when you try to reach consensus and when you have different opinions, there are many different political parties.

I think that a political dialogue in any country is complex and so it is also in Haiti.

Part of the the discussion here is obviously Haiti is currently has has no elected official in the country.

The mandate of parliamentarians of all the parliamentarians ended in January this year.

So of course we are really Haiti finds itself sort of out of a constitutional order if you wish.

So that makes the situation also more complex.

You have really nothing, You cannot rely on the constitution to tell you what should be the next steps.

Right now there is a concerted effort and I think that was the message, the the heart of the message of the SG yesterday.

The secretary general was really that actors need to come together and accelerate the the rhythm of let's say, really put a sort of a higher gear into the political dialogue so that we can advance on that.

Right now we don't we don't see that that is impacting the the arrival of the multinational security support mission.

And also it does not impact the our humanitarian operations.

Of course, it makes the situation in Haiti more complex and as we see in many other countries, when you have a situation of of political instability, which has, after all, been quite a frequent feature of the political scenery in Haiti, but it does not prevent us.

It does not present an obstacle for humanitarian assistance.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Monsieur Eagle.

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Missy Boku and I would like to really thank very much Missus Richardson for this briefing.

I don't see other questions for her so online or in the room.

So I will really would like to thank her very, very much for coming and briefing the journalist here in Geneva just before leaving.

So thanks and please come back anytime and good luck with this month.

That's going to be pretty difficult in AET even more than they are now.

And I really hope that everybody will hear the appeal for a stronger contributions to the funding demanded for humanitarian activities.

As usual, we'll take 5 minutes of break and then we will continue with the with the rest of the programme of the of the press briefing.

Thank you.

OCHA PRESS CONFERENCE: ULRIKA RICHARDSON ON SITUATION IN HAITI - 08 DECEMBER 2023