The United Nations has announced that six children and seven women kidnapped last week in the hillside community of Kenscoff, Haiti, have been released. In a statement late on Friday, representatives from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) used the news to call attention to the ongoing crisis unfolding in Haiti — and the toll it has taken on the country’s youth. On the night of August 23, an estimated 150 armed gang members are believed to have attacked Kenscoff, which sits on the hillsides overlooking the capital Port-au-Prince and the suburb of Petionville.
Reports from the UN indicate that the armed attackers opened fire on residents in the streets and pursued some locals into a nearby Protestant church. There, those who had taken shelter were forced outside. The UN estimates 22 were killed in the church’s courtyard, and another dozen behind the building.
At least 47 people were killed in total. More than 50 were kidnapped. An estimated 2,647 residents were displaced from their homes, fleeing the violence for safety in neighbouring communities.
Some of their houses were set on fire. The victims of the August 23 attack add to the ever-growing death toll in Haiti, which has struggled with an uptick in organised violence since the start of the decade. Armed groups have long had a presence in Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere.
But their influence has grown, as Haiti has suffered a succession of natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. Other crises have also gripped the country: UN peacekeepers, for example, are believed to have caused a deadly cholera outbreak in 2010, which killed more than 10,000 people. Instability in the national government, however, is widely believed to have created an opening for armed actors to take control of parts of the country.
In 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated at his home in the capital. The country’s leadership fell to an unelected figure, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who struggled with questions about his mandate to lead. The last elected national figures, a group of senators, saw their terms expire in 2023.
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