GENEVA: More than a million people, over half of them children, are now displaced within Haiti where gang violence continues unabated despite the start of a United Nations-backed security mission last year, UN data showed on Tuesday (Jan 14).

The tally of 1.04 million displaced people released by the International Organization for Migration represents a threefold increase from December 2023 when 315,000 people were homeless. Never before have so many people been displaced by violence in the country, according to UN data.

"Haiti needs sustained humanitarian assistance right now to save and protect lives," said IOM Director General Amy Pope in a statement sent to journalists, stressing the need to address the root causes of the violence and instability.

Armed gangs within Haiti now have near-total control over the capital Port-au-Prince and wide remit over the rest of the country. An international mission approved last year tasked with restoring order has so far seen just a fraction of troops deploying, although two contingents of Guatemalan soldiers arrived this month to boost the mission's forces.

IOM spokesperson Kennedy Okoth Omondi told a Geneva press briefing that spaces in shelters were running short, with many struggling to obtain basic services like food and water. Deportations of migrants from The Dominican Republic and elsewhere have added to the strain on communities, he added.

"What has really made this worse is the fact that we have seen over and over deportation still occurring back to Haiti, where communities are already struggling to basically survive," he said.