One Million Two Hundred Thousand People Live in Camps in Haiti: Human Dignity Questioned, According to an OPC Investigation

By: By Jean Mapou

PORT-AU-PRINCE.— The Office for the Protection of Citizens (OPC) published an investigation, conducted this April, on the situation of internally displaced persons. Titled *Study on the Protection of the Rights of Displaced Persons in Haiti*, this investigation highlights the absence of state responsibility and the lack of commitment from human rights organizations, as well as the role of the OPC in the camps.

*An alarming and worrying situation for the future*

This 67-page document describes Internal Displacement (IDP), in the current context, as stemming from conflicts or armed banditry in border or populous areas. “IDP expresses a failure of social control, due to a breakdown in public security policy that directly leads to the systematic violation of the right to security,” writes Jean Wilner Morin, Citizen Protector.

Generally, security is the state of mind of the social body that feels calm, reassured, confident, safe from all danger, comments the OPC, maintaining that security refers to trust, while observations show that the security reality in the metropolitan area is far from protecting the population from all threats.

*What exactly is the security situation in the metropolitan area?*

To answer this, the investigation goes back to 2020 with the formation of the gangster organization called G9 and G-pèp a little later. Strengthening themselves as political poles, these organizations regrouped in 2024 into a criminal coalition named Viv Ansanm, the OPC recalls.

“Since the gangs federated, a situation of terror has settled in the metropolitan area,” the investigators emphasize. National roads are systematically occupied, neighborhoods are controlled by bandits, and residents, to escape the terror that has taken hold, are forced to abandon their homes, taking what they can to try to find refuge elsewhere in other neighborhoods and public places.

Carrefour-Feuilles, Solino, Delmas 30, Christ-Roi, Kenscoff, and Mirebalais are added to the lost territories, spoils of the bandits. Those who tried to resist eventually failed, the OPC reported in its study.

*The human rights situation, a catastrophe in internally displaced persons' camps*

The target population of the study is internally displaced persons in the camps. At the time of information gathering, one hundred four (104) camps existed in the metropolitan area and comprised approximately one million two hundred thousand (1,200,000) internally displaced persons.

Life in the camps is dehumanizing and does not meet human dignity standards. The spaces and environment of the camps are not designed to house a single person, let alone entire families. Hygiene conditions are deplorable. This situation increasingly calls into question the rights to identity, health, education, housing, food, environment, freedom of movement, and human dignity, the OPC maintains.