Haiti humanitarian crisis worsening as violence escalates, says aid group

(Reuters) - The humanitarian situation in Haiti is dramatically worsening, aid group Save the Children said, with underfunded security forces increasingly overwhelmed by powerful gangs and capital Port-au-Prince on the brink of collapse.

In the first three months of this year, more than 78,500 people were displaced, more than double that of the same period a year ago, according to Save the Children.

"Children in Haiti are trapped in a nightmare," the group's Haiti head Chantal Sylvie Imbeault said in a statement on Tuesday. Armed groups are tightening their grip over routes out of the capital and control nearly all neighborhoods in the city, she said.

Leslie Voltaire, who held the rotating presidency of Haiti's nine-member transitional presidential council from October to March, is in Honduras for a Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) summit, in which Haiti will try to shore up regional support for its security efforts.

The transitional council has lost popular backing in recent months as armed groups have extended their reach. Last week, thousands of Haitians took to the streets in protest.

On Thursday, Fritz Alphonse Jean, the current head of the transition council, announced that the council was teaming up to tackle gangs with members of an armed paramilitary group who once tried to overthrow the government, in a sign of authorities' increasing desperation to bring violence under control.

Once an armed environmental agency, the Brigade for the Security of Protected Areas has evolved into a paramilitary group. Its members have clashed with police and are allied with former rebel leader Guy Philippe, who led a 2004 uprising against then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Philippe sought to make a political comeback after being deported to Haiti in 2023 following imprisonment in the U.S. for money laundering derived from drug trafficking.

The international response to Haiti's crisis has been led by Kenya, which first deployed police officers last June for a multinational mission. There are currently around 1,000 security personnel with the mission, about three-quarters of them from Kenya.

After clashes with gangs in recent weeks, Kenyan officers have suffered injuries and at least one possible death.

At the same time, "governments are making drastic cuts to foreign aid," Save the Children said.

U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily imposed a blanket freeze in foreign aid funds when he took office in January, though more than $64 million was later cleared to back Haitian police and the Kenyan-led mission.

(Reporting by Kylie Madry in Mexico City; additional reporting by Harold Isaac in Port-au-Prince; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)