Haiti's child death toll mounts as security mission lags

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - At least five Haitian children have been killed or injured a week so far in 2024, charity Save the Children said on Tuesday, urging the United Nations and security forces to do more to protect kids from crossfire and gang violence.

Haiti in 2022 called for a security mission to help its under-resourced police fight violent gangs that have taken over most of the capital, bringing indiscriminate killings, gang rape, extortion and recruiting minors into their ranks.

But progress has been slow and so far just 400 Kenyan police mandated to lead a U.N-ratified mission have deployed in Haiti, while countries have lagged in delivering on promises of funds, personnel and armored trucks.

Citing U.N. data, Save the Children said at least 131 children were killed or injured in the first six months of 2024, often due to stray bullets or reprisals for supporting rival gangs or police, and said the true numbers were likely much higher.

"Behind these horrifying numbers are real children who have been severely harmed or killed," the charity's Haiti director Chantal Sylvie Imbeault said.

"Entire neighborhoods have been burned, kidnappings and sexual assaults are rampant, and children are being directly targeted or caught in the crossfire."

In late July, local media reported that a Kenyan mission to Ganthier, a community by the border with the Dominican Republic, had rapidly ended with police having to help them escape gang gunfire due to lack of preparedness and resources.

Violence in Ganthier had by Aug. 1 displaced nearly 6,000 residents, U.N. data showed.

Save the Children called on the U.N. Security Council to "end impunity" for those committing abuses against children and recruiting them into gangs, and called on "all parties in Haiti to allow immediate, sustained and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief."

Schools are set to reopen on Oct. 1, but many in the capital have been turned into makeshift refugee camps as the number of people internally displaced by the conflict nears 600,000.

(Reporting by Harold Isaac and Sarah Morland; Editing by Alistair Bell)