CLOSE to half of Haiti’s people — 2.2 million adults and 3 million children — are in need of humanitarian aid and thousands of youngsters face “staggering levels” of gender-based violence, the head of the United Nations children’s agency revealed on Thursday.

Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said: “Haitians and our team, they’re telling me it’s never been worse than it is now — unprecedented hunger and malnutrition, grinding poverty, a crippled economy, resurgence of cholera and a massive insecurity that creates a deadly downward spiral of violence.”

Having just returned from a visit to the country, Ms Russell said it was clear that the police don’t have the capacity to ensure security and protect the population from violent gangs, so “something needs to change.”

She added: “We have to, as an international community, say we can’t watch this country completely fall apart.

“And so my job is to try to bring some attention to that problem and to make sure people understand how terrible the humanitarian crisis is, what kind of impact that’s having on children.”

Speaking at a news conference, the Unicef head repeated some of the stories she had heard at a centre for survivors of gender-based violence in a dangerous part of the capital Port-au-Prince.

An 11-year-old girl who was eight months pregnant recounted how five men had grabbed her in the street and raped her, Ms Russell said. 

The girl gave birth days after their talk, she said.

Since October, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has been urging the immediate deployment of an international armed force to stem the gang violence and Haiti’s worst human rights crisis in decades. 

But neither the United States, which has been criticised over previous interventions in Haiti, nor Canada have shown any interest in leading such a force. 

The international community has instead opted to impose sanctions and send military equipment and other resources.