Haitians return to school under shadow of gang violence

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (CMC) — When UNICEF’s Representative in Haiti Geetanjali Narayan stepped into a classroom in Port-au-Prince at the start of the new school year, she asked the children a simple question: What did they most need from the UN children’s agency? “Madame, please, can you stop the armed groups? Can you stop what the gangs are doing to us?” a child responded.

Her plea captured the reality confronting children across Haiti, where violence has disrupted schools, upended families and made even the simple act of going to class an act of courage. As children around the world head back to school, the start of the year in Haiti unfolds once again under the shadow of insecurity, displacement and hardship. Children must cross gang-controlled zones to reach school, risking crossfire and forced recruitment.

Yet in a country battered by gang violence, school also remains a space of hope — where children can learn, reunite with their classmates and, despite everything, begin to imagine their future. For Etzer, a father of four, internally displaced and an advocate for the rights of displaced people, returning to class means far more than simply going back to school. After fleeing their neighbourhood because of gang violence, many displaced children are reuniting with friends and rebuilding a social life brutally cut short by the crisis.

“Schooling is like therapy for these children,” he says. But in many areas, learning conditions remain extremely difficult. Jasmide, mother of seven-year-old Woodayline, is glad classes are reopening.

But behind that hope lies the hardships facing many families: hunger, unemployment, insecurity, and the cost of schooling, which weighs particularly heavily on those who depend on private institutions. “We Haitian parents are in favour of classes reopening but not under the sub-human conditions being imposed on us,” she said. Those concerns are widely shared among displaced families and communities scared by violence.

Everywhere, Narayan said, she hears the same plea: to see children going to school safely. “Above all, we want safety and continuity of education,” she added. The scale of the crisis is staggering.