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About 1.47 million people are currently displaced in gang-hit Haiti, the United Nations (UN) migration agency said on Friday, warning that funding shortages could severely limit humanitarian operations within months.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said the updated figures reflect a worsening crisis in the Caribbean nation, where armed gangs continue to drive widespread killings, sexual violence, kidnappings and looting.
According to the agency, violence is spreading into areas previously considered safe, leaving displaced populations with fewer places of refuge.
IOM Chief of Mission in Haiti, Gregoire Goodstein, told a press briefing in Geneva that nearly 1.47 million people remain displaced, describing the situation as one in which violence is rapidly expanding across the country.
“Nearly 1.47 million people remain displaced in the country.
“The violence is no longer contained: it is expanding,” Goodstein said.
He said displaced persons now represent about 12 percent of Haiti’s population, with women and girls accounting for more than half of those affected.
The IOM noted that renewed violence in the Cite Soleil area of Port-au-Prince in May forced more than 18,000 people from their homes within days, pushing displacement in the capital above 300,000 for the first time.
He described the crisis as a convergence of armed violence, widespread hunger, forced returns, climate shocks and weakened institutions, all reinforcing each other.
“What we are seeing is the permanent simultaneity of hardship, armed violence, mass displacement, acute food insecurity, forced returns at scale, climate hazards, and institutions under pressure at every level… each one making the others worse,” Goodstein explained.
The IOM said more than 270,000 Haitians were forcibly returned from abroad in 2025, with another 110,000 arriving so far this year. A significant proportion were women and children, including unaccompanied minors.
Goodstein added that around 95,000 people have been newly displaced since December, while over 78,000 have returned to their areas of origin, though he questioned whether such returns are sustainable.
He warned that funding constraints could force the agency to scale down operations beyond October, adding that the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season could worsen conditions significantly.
“We cannot assert that these returns are sustainable, but they are a signal, and signals require investment to become something lasting,” Goodstein said.
“Without predictable, sustained support to our crisis response plan, our capacity to respond is at stake.”
“Every gap in our response is a gap that armed groups, trafficking networks and despair will fill,” he said, stressing that short-term relief alone is insufficient to address the scale of the crisis, which has persisted for nearly five years.
