THE number of internally displaced people in Haiti has tripled over the last year and now exceeds one million, a record in the Caribbean nation, the United Nations migration agency has said.

The International Organisation for Migration said on Tuesday that “relentless gang violence” in the capital Port-au-Prince has fuelled a near-doubling of displacement there and a collapse of healthcare and other services, plus worsening food insecurity. 

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world.

“The latest data reveals that 1,041,000 people, many displaced multiple times, are struggling amidst an intensifying humanitarian crisis,” the Geneva-based agency said in a statement. 

Children make up more than half of the displaced population.

The figure marks a three-fold increase in displacement from the total of 315,000 in December 2023, IOM said.

Agency spokesman Kennedy Okoth told a UN briefing in Geneva that the forced return of around 200,000 people, mostly from the neighbouring Dominican Republic, to Haiti over the last year had worsened the crisis. 

The two countries share the island of Hispaniola.

Mr Okoth said that the number of displacement sites in Port-au-Prince had risen from 73 to 108 over the last year.

In the United States, the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden has strongly supported and expanded a temporary status programme, which allows some foreign nationals from nations such as El Salvador, Haiti and Venezuela to remain in the country.

US President-elect Donald Trump has suggested that he may scale back the use of the programme and policies that grant temporary status, as he pursues mass deportations. 

Last week, the UN Human Rights Office noted that more than 5,600 people had been reported killed in Haiti last year, a more than 20 per cent increase on the previous year. 

In addition, more than 2,200 people were reported injured and nearly 1,500 kidnapped.