The UN says more than a million people have died in Haiti as a result of rampant gang violence

The U.N. migration agency says internal displacement in Haiti, largely driven by gang violence, has tripled over the past year and now exceeds one million people, a record in the Caribbean country.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday that “ruthless gang violence” in the capital Port-au-Prince has led to a near doubling of displacement in the city and a collapse of health care and other services, as well as worsening food insecurity. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world.

“The latest data shows that 1,041,000 people, many of them repeatedly displaced, are struggling with a growing humanitarian crisis,” the Geneva-based agency said in a statement. Children make up more than half of the displaced population.

This figure represents a threefold increase in displacement from 315,000 in December 2023, according to IOM.

Agency spokesman Kennedy Okoth told a U.N. conference in Geneva that the forced return to Haiti of about 200,000 people over the past year – mostly from the neighboring Dominican Republic – has worsened the crisis. The two countries share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

Okoth said the number of resettlement sites in Port-au-Prince has increased from 73 to 108 over the past year.

WATCH | A human rights organization says at least 110 people have been murdered by a Haitian gang:

According to human rights organizations, a Haitian gang massacres at least 110 people

At least 110 people died in the Cite Soleil slum in Haiti when a gang leader targeted elderly people he suspected of causing his child's illness through witchcraft, according to the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights.

The outgoing administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has strongly supported and expanded the Temporary Status program, which allows some foreign nationals from countries such as El Salvador, Haiti and Venezuela to remain in the United States.

US President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance have suggested that they will limit the use of the temporary status program and policies in the wake of mass deportations. US federal regulations would allow extensions to end early, although this has never been done before.

Asked if IOM had any concerns about possible changes to U.S. safeguards, Okoth declined to comment on any specific country.

But he said that “deportation or any forced return to countries that already face growing security and humanitarian challenges will not be beneficial to this group.”