Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025

Regional Overviews
 
The Americas Spotlight: Haiti
Displacement associated with criminal violence in Haiti continued to grow in 2024, triggering a record 889,000 movements and leaving over a million people internally displaced as of the end of the year. This latter figure is three times higher than in 2023 and a six-fold increase since 2022. 
 
The sharp rise in displacement put further pressure on host communities, particularly in the capital Port-au-Prince, leading more people to seek shelter in displacement sites. In a shift in the patterns of displacement compared with previous years, many people fled the city to other provinces in search of safety and security.
 
Persistent political instability and the consolidation of criminal gangs explain the rise in violence and displacement in 2024. A coalition of gangs known as Viv Ansanm carried out a growing number of coordinated attacks at the end of 2023 and throughout 2024. Assaults on government buildings and infrastructure during the first quarter of the year led to the disruption of services and the temporary closure of the airport. Some displacement sites were also temporarily closed, leaving many IDPs without shelter.
 
Limited resources, including food, led to mounting tensions between IDPs and host communities, to the point that 40 per cent of the latter reported being unable to continue hosting those displaced, and 15 percent explicitly refusing to do so. An increasing number of people moved to displacement sites in Port-au-Prince as a result, but over- crowding, deteriorating living conditions and persisting violence contributed to an urban exodus of IDPs towards other provinces. By the end of the year, three-quarters of the country’s IDPs were outside Port-au-Prince, with many lacking access to humanitarian aid or basic services.
 
The situation of children, who make up more than half of the country’s IDPs, was particularly alarming. Not only were they deprived of education but many were also subjected to forced recruitment, a trend that increased by 70 per cent in 2024. Some estimates point at minors making up about half of the gangs’ members.Some families separated as a means of shielding children from criminal violence, including by sending them unaccompanied to other provinces.
 
Gender-based violence continued to be a major issue. Around 1.2 million people required protection from gender-based violence in 2024, more than double the figure for the previous year. Gangs continued to use rape and sexual assault as a mean to exert control over the population, and targeted displacement sites to restrict access to humanitarian assistance. Most people identified as victims were internally displaced. IDPs also faced higher risks of intimate partner violence in overcrowded displacement sites and host families.
 
Food security also deteriorated. More than 5.4 million people faced acute food insecurity in the second half of 2024. More than 3,000, all of them in displacement sites, were experiencing catastrophic, or IPC phase 5 levels, high- lighting IDPs’ specific vulnerability. Price rises for staple food items were reported in areas where people had fled to, while violence and displacement disrupted agricultural production. The situation was further aggravated by the gangs’ control of ports, which continued to restrict the availability of goods, including food.
 
Essential medical supplies were also limited, forcing some hospitals to close and impeding the response to a cholera outbreak that started in late 2022 and which continued to affect IDPs in over- crowded displacement sites with poor sanitation and hygiene conditions.
 
About nine per cent of Haiti’s population was internally displaced as of the end of the year. The shifting patterns of displacement and IDPs’ growing needs prompted IOM to expand its data collection efforts, providing key information for humanitarian programming. While increased humanitarian aid will help IDPs overcome their most pressing needs in the short term, more efforts will be needed to address the structural and underlying drivers of violence. These include strengthening security, reducing poverty and tackling inequality. 
 
Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Norwegian Refugee Council. Geneva, Switzerland.