The out­go­ing UN res­i­dent and hu­man­i­tar­i­an co­or­di­na­tor for Haiti, Ul­ri­ka Richard­son, says she of­ten felt un­able to de­scribe the sit­u­a­tion in the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try where crim­i­nal gangs are seek­ing to over­throw the gov­ern­ment and where peo­ple—in­clud­ing women and chil­dren—are killed and dis­placed.

“I of­ten feel that I can­not even find words any longer to de­scribe the sit­u­a­tion. Is it alarm­ing, is it acute, is it ur­gent? It is all of that and even more,” Richard­son told the dai­ly brief­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tions.

The UN said Haiti is cur­rent­ly fac­ing a pro­tract­ed and wors­en­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis, with the gang vi­o­lence ex­pand­ing be­yond the cap­i­tal of Port-au-Prince and civil­ians in­creas­ing­ly bear­ing the brunt of this ter­ror.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Haiti is one of five coun­tries world­wide ex­pe­ri­enc­ing famine-like con­di­tions.

She said that amidst this hor­ror, Haiti’s hu­man­i­tar­i­an plan is on­ly nine per cent fund­ed, mak­ing it the least fund­ed hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­sponse plan in the world.

But de­spite these chal­leng­ing and pro­tract­ed cir­cum­stances, Richard­son was al­so keen to em­pha­sise that po­lit­i­cal will and fund­ing could en­sure that the cur­rent cri­sis does not have to be Haiti’s fu­ture.

“Haiti’s des­tiny does not need to be mis­ery and de­spair,” she as­sert­ed. “As much as Haiti has spi­ralled down in a neg­a­tive [way], Haiti can quick­ly spi­ral up again.”

The UN said that more than 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple have been dis­placed in Haiti as a re­sult of vi­o­lence and al­most half of the coun­try is suf­fer­ing from emer­gency food in­se­cu­ri­ty.

These num­bers have be­come so big that it can be hard to con­ceive of the ac­tu­al hu­man im­pact be­hind them.

“All of that is just fig­ures. Be­yond every fig­ure, there is a moth­er, a child, a fa­ther, a young per­son,” Richard­son said, not­ing that some­times these num­bers al­so ob­scure cer­tain liveli­hoods.

For ex­am­ple, the num­ber of 1.3 mil­lion dis­placed ob­scures those left be­hind, per­haps be­cause they phys­i­cal­ly could not flee as vi­o­lence en­croached on their neigh­bour­hood.

Richard­son said she has heard many sto­ries like this.

“These could be peo­ple in a wheel­chair or an el­der­ly rel­a­tive that they sim­ply have to leave be­hind. They can­not move with them,” said Richard­son, who is leav­ing Haiti for Libya af­ter three years as Unit­ed Na­tions hu­man­i­tar­i­an co­or­di­na­tor.

She told re­porters there is much about Haiti’s cur­rent sit­u­a­tion that she finds frus­trat­ing—most specif­i­cal­ly, the fact that the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has iden­ti­fied the so­lu­tions to mit­i­gate, if not com­plete­ly stop, the cri­sis.

“We have tools, but the re­sponse from the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is not on par with the grav­i­ty on the ground,” she said.

For ex­am­ple, the Kenya-led Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port mis­sion (MSS) has half of the per­son­nel and very lit­tle of the equip­ment it needs to ful­fil its man­date.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, while sanc­tions on po­lit­i­cal lead­ers with gang ties are slow­ly tak­ing hold, they are in­suf­fi­cient. Sim­i­lar­ly, the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is not do­ing enough to stop the flow of guns.

“These tools need to be giv­en the prop­er sup­port and in­vest­ment in or­der to car­ry out their full man­date. There has to be a way of stop­ping arms com­ing in­to Haiti,” Richard­son said, call­ing on coun­tries to ask them­selves what more they can do to end the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis.

She told re­porters that as she leaves the Caribbean for Africa, she is do­ing so with a di­vid­ed heart.

“On the one hand, this is a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis of strik­ing pro­por­tions that the world seems to have for­got­ten,” she ob­served. “But if the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty was able to em­brace the so­lu­tions be­fore them, the cri­sis could end.”

“We can­not do what we do if we are not op­ti­mistic. Of course, we think that there are so­lu­tions. Of course, we think that the fu­ture is brighter than the present,” Richard­son said, not­ing that this op­ti­mism comes in part from Haiti’s “ho­n­ourable and bril­liant” past and from the re­sis­tance she has seen on the ground.

She told re­porters:

“Every con­di­tion is there to turn the page. Haitians are ex­treme­ly ready for this, for the coun­try to have a more pos­i­tive echo in the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.” —UNIT­ED NA­TIONS (CMC)