More than 53,000 have fled violence

More than 53,000 people have fled Haiti’s capital in less than three weeks, the vast majority to escape unrelenting gang violence, according to a United Nations report released Tuesday.

More than 60 per cent are headed to Haiti’s rural southern region, which worries UN officials.

“Our humanitarian colleagues emphasized that these departments do not have sufficient infrastructure, and host communities do not have sufficient resources, to cope with the large number of people fleeing Port-au-Prince,” said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

The southern region already hosts more than 116,000 Haitians who previously left Port-au-Prince, according to the report by the UN’s International Organization for Migration.

The exodus from the capital of some three million people began shortly after powerful gangs launched a series of attacks on government institutions at the end of February. Gunmen have burned police stations, opened fire on the main international airport that remains closed and stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.

More than 1,500 people have been reported killed up to March 22, and another 17,000 have been left homeless, according to the UN.

Of the 53,125 people who fled Port-au-Prince bewteen March 8 and 27, nearly 70 per cent already had been forced to abandon their homes and were living with relatives or in makeshift shelters, the UN found.

More than 90 per cent of Haitians leaving the capital have been crowding into buses, risking travel through gang-controlled territory.