'Pray': 165,000 Haitians Flee to Shelters as Haiti Overrun by Hundreds of Violent Gangs

The nation of Haiti is being overrun by criminal gangs raping, killing, and starving the population. Haitian police have failed to stop the violence, so citizens are resorting to vigilante justice as Haiti spirals into its biggest crisis in more than a decade.

The head of UNICEF in Haiti tells CBN News that 80% of the Caribbean nation's capital city is in the hands of more than 200 criminal gangs.

"Right now the humanitarian situation is really catastrophic," Bruno Maes, UNICEF's representative in Haiti, said. "Actually, it's one of the worst crises Haiti has been through in the past decade."

Port-au-Prince is now almost completely surrounded and cut off from the rest of the island.

"Armed groups have been isolating parts of Port au Prince, they've been using siege tactics," said Jean-Martin Bauer with the UN's World Food Program.

In recent weeks 165,000 Haitians have been forced to flee from their homes after gangs went on a killing and raping spree –  but the displaced civilians only ended up suffering further in makeshift camps.

"We live in misery. We can't find food. There is no drinking water," said Joseph Wilfred, one of the shelter managers. "We don't live like humans, we are humiliated."

Christians at a Protestant church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, cry out to God, June 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Aid agencies are warning that half the country is now at risk of starvation.

"The violence in Haiti is also about the control over resources over valuable resources and one of these happens to be food and we've seen farmland being fought over; we've seen trucks with food being pillaged; we've seen humanitarian warehouses being looted," said Bauer.

Also caught in the crossfire – roughly three million children facing acute malnutrition.

Parents have been forced to bring their kids to hospitals for safety as gangs attack neighborhoods in their battle for territory and control.  

"The parents are unable to look after their children," said Govania Michel a staff member at Fontaine Hospital in the capital. "The majority of the children who arrive are malnourished children who cannot find food."

Anger and frustration are mounting against Haiti's national police, unable to quell the violence.

The UN says more than 1,600 people were killed, injured, or kidnapped in the first three months of the year.

"Despite all their efforts and all the cooperation in equipment, training, and input it gets from the international community, the Haitian police is not at this moment able to defend its people," said María Isabel Salvador, the United Nations special envoy for Haiti.

So Haitians like Mertil Marcelin have been joining a vigilante group that's been hunting down and reportedly killing gang members.

"Today, it is not the United States, France, or Canada who will come to get us out of our situation. It is with a machete that we can get out of the situation," said Marcelin, a member of the Bwa Kale movement.

"That kind of justice breeds a whole other system of insecurity," warns Kevin Falde.

Falde is an American missionary to Haiti.

"People are getting tired of it so there has been a movement underway where a lot of local people have gotten involved in a vigilante-type of justice which you can say whatever you think about that, but it's just desperation, it's where they are at right now," Falde told CBN News.

Cindy McCain, the widow of late Arizona Sen. John McCain, is calling Haiti a "forgotten crisis" as she recently toured the island trying to rally international support.

"I am here to raise the alarm bells about Haiti," said McCain, who is executive director of the World Food Program.

Falde is asking people around the world to pray for Haiti.

"Pray for hope, pray for God to provide for them. Pray that something will happen in the country, with the government, that things will be able to stabilize and the course could get changed here," Falde said.