Staff Account from Haiti: “I’ve never felt more powerless in my own country”

Group of children outside their house in Haiti. Vanessa Batres / Save the Children

Anderson works with Save the Children in Haiti, with two decades of experience working with humanitarian organisations. He has responded to both the 2010 earthquake and the recent surge in armed violence. Anderson has witnessed the kidnapping of four people close to him and was forced to relocate his family in Port-au-Prince last month as armed groups advanced on their neighbourhood.

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"It's been six months since a surge of armed violence paralyzed Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, leading to a dire humanitarian crisis that has spiralled out of control. This year alone, about 600,000 people-most of them children-have been forced from their homes. Hunger has reached record levels, sexual violence is rampant, and I've never felt more powerless in my own country.

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After 17 years as a humanitarian worker in Haiti-including during the 2010 earthquake-I thought I had seen the worst. But nothing could have prepared me for the level of desperation that now grips my country.

I grew up in a Haiti that was full of hope and promise. Back then, as a child, I believed we could become someone, that we could change our country for the better.We had access to education, the chance to learn, to dream.Families meant something. Love was not something you had to search for-it came to you, from your teachers, your family, your friends. But today, that Haiti is gone.

Now, most families in the country are fractured. Children lack protection as parents are too consumed by the daily struggle for survival. Children are left searching desperately for the love they never had and may never find, and as a result, are drawn to or forced to join armed groups, seeking a sense of purpose and protection.

Many of the armed group leaders terrorizing Haiti today were once the very children neglected in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. Little was done to improve their living conditions following the earthquake, and our failure to invest in their future-the future of Haiti-has had dire consequences. If these children had felt heard and been given access to quality education, adequate food, and a government that protected them, they might have chosen a different path. But as a nation, we failed them.

The current situation began to deteriorate rapidly in 2022. Armed groups expanded their control, creating zones of lawlessness.

I live on the west side of Port-au-Prince, caught between two armed groups. The past three months have been an absolute nightmare for my wife, two sons (aged 12 and eight) and me. We live in a constant state of fear and panic, watching as armed groups force our neighbours to flee to the southernmost parts of the country.

At the end of July, my wife and I made the difficult decision to move our family to a safer part of west Port-au-Prince, leaving everything we had behind. But even in our new location, we are not truly safe. Nowhere is safe in Port-au-Prince. This month, armed groups began advancing on our new neighbourhood. We live in fear every day-of kidnappings, of rape, of a cycle of violence that never ends.

In the past year, armed groups have kidnapped three of my friends and one of my cousins. Each time, I negotiated their release and paid the ransom. One friend was freed after a month in captivity. The kidnappers demanded that someone meet them in a cemetery at night in a heavily gang-controlled area of the city. The family was too frightened to go, so I went on their behalf. My friend fled the country the following week with his family, selling everything he owned and vowing never to return to Haiti.

All the friends that I had have left Haiti. The friends that I have now are those that I work with at Save the Children. We hold on to hope, trying to be the change we wish to see in our country. But it's not easy. It's impossible to be a humanitarian worker and not be deeply affected by what we see, by the sheer volume of need and the lack of aid that is able to get into the country and be distributed through armed-group-controlled areas of the capital. The stress is overwhelming. I have ended up in the hospital three times because of the toll it has had on me. But we continue to push forward, because we must. Because if we don't, who will?

Six months ago, the world began to take notice as Haiti's situation dramatically worsened. But for those of us living here, the suffering began long before.

The crises plaguing our country today will persist for decades without meaningful change-without the world recognising Haiti's potential and supporting our nation to rebuild rather than just survive another day. Only then can we offer both current and future generations of children a genuine chance to reclaim their future and break this cycle of violence and suffering. It's a call for help from all Haitians, especially from children to the rest of the world and our leaders to invest in real change. The current situation cannot continue this way."

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