Ginebra.- More than half a million haitian children, one in seven, cannot go to school due to the violence that the country is experiencing due to the activity of armed gangs, in which half of the combatants are also minors, denounced this Friday the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
"In 2024, armed gangs destroyed 284 schools, and in January alone there were 47, attacks on education are accelerating," said the agency's representative in Haiti at a press conference in Geneva, Geetanjali Narayan.
The UNICEF chief stressed that another million children are at risk of dropping out of school: "Education, one of the hopes that many Haitian children have, has never been so threatened."
Narayan recalled that the forced recruitment of children by the approximately 300 armed groups operating in the country increased by 70% in 2024, and denounced that combatants as young as eight years old have been detected.
"Without access to education, children are more vulnerable to exploitation and recruitment, and education is the best way to break this cycle," said the UNICEF representative.
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United Nations requests support for Haitian children to continue their education
The United Nations fund has requested 38 million dollars to ensure that some 600,000 Haitian children continue their education despite the crisis that has dragged on for years due to the activity of armed gangs, which control large areas of the country and the capital, Port-au-Prince.
In 2024, according to data verified by the UN, At least 5,626 people died in Haiti As a result of the actions of criminal gangs (one thousand more than the previous year), 2,213 were injured and 1,494 were kidnapped.
