Unicef has published that half of Haiti's children depend on humanitarian aid to survive, which this year will urgently need some 2.6 million children. The country is in an extreme situation, especially since 2021, which has a direct impact on the quality of life of its citizens. Famine has spread throughout the country, with over 4.7 million inhabitants. But not only that, the cholera plague and the political instability of the country have made the country vulnerable.

In the last two years the Caribbean State has no clear leadership. President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021 for unclear reasons, and since then the country’s economy and authority have not come to an end. In January of this year the last ten remaining senators of the previous government ceased, at the end of their term of office, and since then the signs of a legitimate government elected by the citizens have disappeared. At present, Ariel Henry is in office as President, but a high percentage of the population is faced with a lack of legitimacy.

Thus, the presence of violent groups in the streets has increased to control two-thirds of the capital, as is the case of the G9 gang members who in September last year occupied the main destination of the country's ports and oil tankers, against the latest government measures. Insecurity on the streets has led to the closure or direct destruction of some schools in the capital. However, the lack of schooling has led children to recruit into the gangs.

All these factors have made the country vulnerable to the extreme, but the lack of aid is obvious; even some international humanitarian aid associations are moving from the country because of a lack of security. In fact, there have also been attacks on the hospitals of these institutions and they have taken this decision to protect their workers.

Debt for the whole story

Since 2010, when the earthquake was as famous as it was critical, the situation in Haiti has worsened: since then the crisis has risen to thirteen years. But the current crisis is not the country’s first crisis, let alone: Haiti is a country marked by crises and economic and political circumstances, since its independence. Because there's one of the keys to chronic precariousness.

Since his independence in 1804, he has been paying his “debt” to France for 122 years, when the French Government asked him for 150,000,000 francs for gaining independence, all the income Haiti would earn in about ten years. That debt was what the French colonizers had to give in exchange for land and slaves that they had “lost”. They paid the debt, they paid well, but that conditioned the first century of the country and made economic development absolutely insignificant.

To this principle must be added international occupations, which EE.UU. carried out in the first half of the twentieth century, or dictatorships – François “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” in the second half of that century. With the earthquake of the new century, the assassination of the president and the coup, there is a country with an absolutely unstable situation. And that is how Haiti remains the poorest country in America.

See more information on Haiti in Urko Apaolaza's report: Slavery. Haiti, revolution and revenge.