Haiti displacement tops 1.5 million as gang violence spreads nationwide

Haiti’s displacement crisis has climbed to nearly 1.5 million people, a threshold that now reaches far beyond Port-au-Prince and into communities that once offered safety. The International Organization for Migration said more than half of those uprooted are women and girls, and the number of internally displaced people in the capital has passed 300,000 for the first time on record.

The latest wave of flight shows how quickly violence is swallowing new territory. Renewed attacks in Cité Soleil displaced more than 18,000 people in May, while armed violence in Haiti’s South-East Department forced more than 5,000 more from their homes in recent weeks. The pattern is repeated across the country: families are moving into overcrowded spontaneous sites or sheltering with already strained host communities, even as more than 110,000 Haitians have been forcibly returned since the beginning of 2026.

Gregoire Goodstein, the IOM chief of mission, said the crisis has entered a more alarming phase because violence is now spreading into places that once served as refuge, leaving many people with nowhere left to turn. That spread matters for policy as much as for survival. Repeated displacement interrupts schooling, health care, work and community support, while raising the risks of abuse, exploitation and food insecurity. It also puts humanitarian workers in increasingly dangerous conditions and makes it harder to move aid into the worst-hit neighborhoods and departments.

The scale of the collapse is clearer when measured against the last two years. In January 2024, IOM reported 1,041,000 internally displaced people in Haiti. By October 2025, that figure had risen above 1.4 million, a 36% increase since the end of 2024, with 64% of new displacement then occurring outside Port-au-Prince, especially in the Centre and Artibonite departments. Spontaneous displacement sites grew from 142 in December to 238. The Haiti Displacement Tracking Matrix was originally developed after the January 12, 2010 earthquake, which displaced about 1.5 million people, the same scale Haiti is again facing now.

The implications extend well beyond emergency shelter. Haiti’s collapsing health system, shuttered schools and limited economic opportunities are deepening the crisis, while repeated forced returns add pressure on communities already absorbing the displaced. If violence keeps spreading nationwide, the country will face not only a humanitarian emergency but a prolonged breakdown in the systems needed to keep people fed, housed, treated and safe.