Children live in makeshift sites as growing insecurity, particularly in the capital, is forcing families to flee their former shelters in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on April 16, 2025. © 2025 Guerinault Louis/Anadolu via Getty Images (Washington, DC) – One year since deployment of the first personnel of the United Nations-authorized Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti, violence and human rights abuses continue to rise, Human Rights Watch said today.Ongoing shortfalls in personnel, funding, and equipment have severely limited the MSS’s ability to contain violence, which has intensified in Haiti’s capital and beyond, leaving at least 2,680 people killed and 957 injured, according to UN figures. UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ latest report documented an alarming increase in grave violations against children from 383 in 2023 to 2,269 in 2024. This includes a twelvefold increase in documented cases of recruitment and use of children in criminal groups and an even larger increase in rape and sexual violence against children.Violence has forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, pushing the number of internally displaced people to nearly 1.3 million, the highest ever recorded in Haiti, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).“Each day, violence forces hundreds of Haitians to flee with nothing but the clothes on their backs to makeshift sites or other cities, where they remain at risk and have little to no access to food and water,” said Nathalye Cotrino, senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch. “UN member countries should immediately reinforce the MSS. The UN Security Council should end its inaction and transform the MSS into a full-fledged UN mission that has the personnel, resources, and mandate to effectively protect the Haitian people.”In late April and early May 2025, Human Rights Watch visited Cap-Haïtien, the capital of Haiti’s Northern department. With support from the National Human Rights Defense Network (Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, or RNDDH) and Haiti’s Ombudsperson Office, researchers interviewed 33 internally displaced people who had recently fled Port-au-Prince, its metropolitan area, and other municipalities. They also met with humanitarian workers, diplomats, and representatives of Haitian civil society and UN agencies.Since early 2025, criminal groups have escalated attacks in previously safe areas including Port-au-Prince, its metropolitan area, as well as in the municipalities of Mirebalais and Saut-d’Eau in the Centre department, and Petite Rivière in Artibonite. This violence—including clashes with self-defense brigades, often operating with the involvement of police officers, and confrontations with security forces—has forced more than 245,000 people to flee their homes, according to the IOM.Many of Human Rights Watch’s interviewees were university students or professionals with stable jobs and financial resources, including homes or small businesses, who had been able to live largely unaffected by violence until recently.“I was living well in my neighborhood, it was peaceful. Then suddenly, security problems started,” said a 23-year-old civil engineering student who was displaced from Port-au-Prince to Cap-Haïtien in March after an attack that killed his brother. “Men came, a lot of bandits. They started shooting. My family and I ran out of the house. While crossing the street, [my 19-year-old brother] was hit by a bullet. [T]he bullet went through his head … after that, we came to Cap-Haïtien. In my neighborhood, no one is left, only the bandits.”During recent attacks, several interviewees said criminal groups used apps to share audio messages warning residents that they had only a few hours to flee.A 38-year-old plumber from Port-au-Prince who is the father of a six-month-old baby, told Human Rights Watch: “The bandits sent messages to warn us.… We knew they were coming, and they came. They stormed in and ransacked [the neighborhood]. The police deserted. They killed people, burned homes. I lost my house. We saw lifeless bodies everywhere, and there was a nauseating stench. You had to run through it.… We had to leave to save ourselves.”International human rights workers reported that criminal groups set fire to homes on the outskirts of targeted neighborhoods to force residents—and, at times, the police—to flee. According to UN officials, these tactics appear aimed at forcibly depopulating areas to allow criminal groups to expand their presence and pave the way for them to take control of other areas.Many interviewees were displaced multiple times, fleeing first to other areas of Port-au-Prince or nearby cities before seeking refuge in Cap-Haïtien. They traveled by bus, facing risks along the way as criminal groups control key routes, operate checkpoints, and extort passengers.A 37-year-old woman from Cabaret, an area north of Port-au-Prince long controlled by criminal groups, told Human Rights Watch that after being displaced multiple times in the same area, she fled to Mirebalais to protect her 14-year-old daughter from the risk of sexual violence. However, in late March, after criminal groups attacked Mirebalais, burning homes and killing several people, she fled again. “I took refuge in a church in Hinche [a nearby city]. My husband had gone out to work, painting a house. I haven’t heard from him since ... I just hope he isn’t dead. I left Hinche because there were rumors about an imminent attack.… Now we are here [in Cap-Haïtien] but I fear the violence will follow us.”Displaced people, now approximately 11 percent of Haiti’s population, are sheltering across all ten departments. Fifty-five percent of the displaced are women and girls; most are staying with host families or in improvised sites where they face severe shortages of food, water, health care, and other essential services. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, over 8,400 people in makeshift displacement sites are facing famine.Conditions in makeshift displacement sites across Haiti are increasingly dire, with over 246 informal sites reported as of early June 2025, each hosting an average of 2,000 people. Many people are sheltering in overcrowded schools or public spaces, facing severe protection risks and what Haiti’s Office of the Ombudsperson has recently called “inhuman” conditions.The scale of the displacement crisis has overwhelmed existing capacities. The UN’s Humanitarian Response Plan, which aims to assist 3.9 million Haitians out of the 6 million in need of humanitarian aid, is only eight percent funded. The transitional government’s failure to develop a national, comprehensive plan for supporting internally displaced people has also hindered efforts to coordinate and sustain an effective response.The international community isn’t doing enough to support the MSS’s efforts to protect Haitians from the criminal groups displacing them, Human Rights Watch said.Although eight countries notified the UN secretary-general in 2024 of their intent to contribute personnel to the MSS, only Kenya, which leads the mission, Guatemala, El Salvador, Jamaica, and The Bahamas have deployed forces. Their combined deployment totals just 991 officers, well below the expected 2,500.The MSS still requires additional funding to sustain operations through December and establish the remaining 9 of the 12 planned operational bases critical for securing territory and consolidating its presence.The UN Security Council should ensure that the UN-backed MSS receives the personnel and resources needed to fulfill its mandate, and agree on steps to transform the mission into a full-fledged UN operation capable of protecting human rights and preventing a further escalation of violence, Human Rights Watch said.“Violence in Haiti is getting worse by the day,” said Cotrino. “The Security Council should end its waiting game and make the MSS a UN mission. How many more killings, rapes, kidnappings, and child recruitments will it take for governments to wake up and realize what needs to happen?”