Attachments
Highlights
• The opening of the school year has been set for 1 October, and while efforts are made to support the national ‘back to school’ campaign, there are 1.4 million students and teachers whose access to education has been hampered in the last year due to insecurity. In August, a key priority for UNICEF was the preparations for re-entry to school, for all, including the vulnerable population.
• UNICEF scaled up its health response in the South department, which hosts the largest number of IDPs outside the capital Port-au-Prince. To that effect, four municipalities (Cayes, Cavaillon, Aquin et de Camp-Perrin) are supported, including through the training of health care personnel from nine health facilities in the most affected communes.
• Furthermore, through local partners, since January, 61,000 children have benefited from mental health interventions and psychosocial support in mobile and fixed child-friendly spaces and across communities. In partnership with authorities and civil society organizations, UNICEF also reached over 240,000 people with critical water and hygiene supplies, and screened over 290,000 children for wasting (of which nearly 27,000 cases were detected and treated).
• UNICEF requires at least US$221.7 million to address the humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable women and children. To date, the humanitarian appeal has a funding gap of 81 per cent (US$179.4 million).
Situation Overview and Humanitarian Needs
The first of October has been announced by the Government as the start of the school year. Latest estimates note that there are some 3.9 million school-aged children in Haiti, however many in the capital and/or displaced due to violence have had challenges in the last year to attend school or ensure learning continuity due to insecurity. Since the escalation of violence in February and March 2024, over 200,000 school-age children have been displaced and 160,000 have been affected by school closures. In addition, some 4,000 teachers, bringing the total number of those affected (students and teachers), increasing the number of people in need of the education sector from 1.2 million estimated from January 2024 to 1.5 million, which represents a 25 per cent increase in the number of people in need for 2024.
As of August, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) still notes almost 600,000 people internally displaced (IPDs), including 270,000 in the southern departments of Haiti. The IDPs in the commune of Leogane, hosting over 34,000 IDPs who are still reeling from having to flee areas such as neighbouring Gressier which experienced armed group attacks and clashes in July 2024. While the majority are in host families, several thousand are dispersed across eight IDP spontaneous sites, and with the return to school approaching a concern for some 13,000 school-aged children who will miss another year of learning if solutions are not found rapidly to integrate them into a school system. Over 13,000 school-aged IDP children reside in Leogane, West Department.
Following attacks in the commune of Ganthier (1-3 August), IOM/DTM reported that almost 6,000 individuals were displaced from their homes, with over 90 per cent residing with host families, while 6 per cent are in spontaneous sites (2). Due to access challenges including terrestrial routes being blocked by armed groups and limited police presence, multi-sector assessments and responses have not been possible.
As of August, over 86,700 suspected cases of cholera have been reported, and 4,858 confirmed and in both cases almost half as children. To date, over 1,303 deaths have been reported, including at the community (314) and institutional (989) levels. In 2024 the Artibonite department recorded more cases of cholera than any other departments including 1,686 suspected cases and 337 confirmed since the start of the outbreak alone. Along with the centre and the Northeast departments, Artibonite is one of the only three departments with multiple active cholera outbreaks over several weeks.
Following the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of the mpox outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), until 14 August, no mpox cases have been reported in Haiti.
At the end of August, the Ministry for the Status of Women and Women's Rights (MCFDF) with the United Nations partners, organised a national symposium on ‘The place of women in transition: Let's work together to combat gender-based violence (GBV)’. Key findings noted that 94 per cent of women and girls are at risk of Gender-based violence (GBV) in Haiti; 72 per cent of incidents of GBV involve sexual violence, mainly committed by gang members; and women and girls account for more than half of the 580,000 displaced people in Haiti and are at high risk.