UN Warns Of Rising Deportations Of Haitian Mothers And Newborns From Dominican Republic
The agency has emphasised the heightened risks these groups face being returned to Haiti, where access to basic services remains severely limited.
On Tuesday alone, IOM staff at the Belladère border crossing in Haiti received 416 deportees, including 11 pregnant women and 16 women who are still breastfeeding.
Meeting the needs
'While IOM teams are not present during the deportation process itself, their efforts focus on the needs of deportees upon arrival, many of whom arrive in precarious and highly vulnerable conditions, often without any resources,' said UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, speaking in New York.
He explained that IOM provides immediate humanitarian assistance, including food, water, and hygiene kits, as well as first aid, medical referrals, and psychosocial support.
Special attention is given to maternal health, and temporary places to live are arranged for women who are breastfeeding when necessary, he added.
Worsening conditions
Mr. Dujarric also updated on the situation in Haiti, where rising violence and recent funding cuts are undermining essential services and worsening the humanitarian situation, particularly in the Centre Department.
Escalating violence on the part of armed groups has triggered mass displacement, with more than 51,000 people, over half of them children, fleeing recent attacks. Many are now stranded at makeshift sites or seeking safety in other regions.
No safety inside hospitals
He noted that the University Hospital of Mirebalais – a major referral facility with about 300 beds – has suspended operations following a wave of insecurity in the area.
'Armed attacks, a mass prison break and the destruction of public infrastructure forced the hospital to gradually shut down. Before its closure, it served nearly 850 patients each day, including through maternal care and advanced cancer treatment,' he said.
Meanwhile, two other hospitals in the area – St. Therese in Hinche and Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Artibonite – are now coming under increased strain and face critical shortages, including oxygen and emergency medical kits.
Since the closure of the University Hospital in Mirebalais, they have treated more than 200 patients for gunshot wounds, strokes, suspected cholera and malnutrition.
'St. Therese alone has received more than 3,500 internally displaced people – tripling its outpatient caseload,' he said.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and humanitarian partners are working to relieve pressure on the health system in Centre Department.
Mobile clinics are being deployed to reach 30,000 people in host communities and displacement camps, in coordination with the Haitian authorities and the Catholic charity Caritas.
Humanitarians are seeking $908 million to support nearly four million people in Haiti this year. Only six per cent of the funding, $57 million, has been received to date.
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The Spinoff
5 days ago
- The Spinoff
The odds of the new suicide prevention action plan succeeding are slim to none
To truly reduce suicide rates in Aotearoa, we need to think beyond rehashed policies and one-size-fits-all prevention tactics, writes counsellor Anna Sophia. This post contains discussion of suicide: please take care. For a list of resources that can help if you or someone you know is feeling suicidal, see below. When someone close to you dies by suicide, the space-time continuum cracks open. One moment, you're living your ordinary life; the next, you've been sucked into a vortex. You replay the graphic details of their death over and over. You tell yourself that if you cycle through it one more time you might discover a glitch in the chaotic world system that could bring them back. Soon enough the painful reality sinks in. They made a choice and they are not returning. In Aotearoa, a dark cloud descends and takes away more people each year than car accidents. Psychiatrist and author Kay Redfield Jamison, in Night Falls Fast (1999), describes suicidal despair as a complete loss of hope accompanied by overwhelming psychological pain. People in this state believe that nothing will ever improve. They feel trapped, alone and unable to see any other options. The aftermath of losing someone by suicide is fraught with flashbacks and self-questioning. It blows apart the layered veneers of your life. While you do eventually rebuild, one fragile piece at a time, you always carry with you two unanswerable questions: 1) Why did they do it? 2) Was there anything I could have done to stop it? Over the course of my six decades of life, I have experienced more than my share of this aftermath personally and professionally. In 1990, when my father was 56 years old, he killed himself. It was a cold, wet night in early June. He didn't leave a note, just a couple of TAB tickets with 'good tickets' scrawled on the back. (Yes we checked them. They were not winners.) My father was a heavy drinker and a gambling man, a New Zealand Navy veteran who had joined up as a teenager just in time for dispatch to the Korean War. When he wasn't drinking, even on blue sky days he lay morosely on the couch in a darkened room, chain smoking Pall Mall filters and not speaking. Thirty-five years ago, men like my father did not talk about their feelings, let alone seek counselling. In many parts of Aotearoa, not much has changed. When I was nine years old we lived in Te Awamutu and I attended the Catholic school there. (The Finn brothers did too but they are older than me.) That year two of my class mates lost their fathers to suicide. In the 1990s a university friend died in a mental health ward shortly after her baby was born. Later that decade my former university lecturer, a person of immense talent took her own life, and two years ago my long-time friend Paula died in a suspected suicide. As a counsellor, I have listened to many stories from people who have lost loved ones to suicide and from others who had either attempted to take their own life or seriously considered it. Last week, the latest suicide prevention action plan was published. It looks similar to its predecessors with a few extra embellishments. My father loved horse racing so I'll use his language: it's a rank outsider, the odds of winning are slim to none, and I'm not betting my money on it. In 2008, MP Jim Anderton, whose daughter died by suicide, said: 'We are already fortunate in New Zealand to have people with a range of expertise who are committed to suicide prevention. And we have a variety of initiatives happening right now and contributing to suicide prevention across the country.' Seventeen years later nothing has changed and suicide remains one of our most complex health and social issues. Suicide is an emotive subject and it remains difficult to have open and transparent conversations about it. Media restrictions, a historical residue of whakama and sheer discomfort means bereaved people are often met with silence. I think the silence is the inability of many people to hold the horror and complexity of this kind of death. Alongside shock, grief and overwhelming sadness, there can also be anger and sometimes feelings of relief. In the year ended June 30, 2024, just over 600 people died by suicide. If each had 50 people in their circle – whānau, friends, colleagues, classmates – then 30,000 people this year are carrying that loss and asking the same questions I did. Why did they do it? Was there anything I could have done to stop it? If we want to reduce suicide rates in Aotearoa, we need to think beyond rehashed policies that paper over the cracks in our socioeconomic system. Community initiatives often flicker into life then burn out due to underfunding or exhaustion. In the 2000s, Rick Stevenson biked around the country as a part of his organisation Project Hope, launched after his son Mike's suicide. He wanted mental health education to be mandatory in all secondary schools. I knew Mike. When I dropped out of high school and worked as a cook in a weed-spraying gang, Mike was part of the crew. He and I stayed up late drinking and dreaming up future selves. He was contemplative and intelligent, and his death cut short a future filled with possibilities. If I gathered everyone I know who has died by suicide into a room, the only thing they'd have in common would be their self-inflicted death. One-size-fits-all prevention tactics won't work. A deeper, more nuanced approach is required. Late last year I wrote about the community counselling centre in Marton, in the Southern Rangitīkei district where I work as a manager and counsellor. Oranga Tamariki, with which we had previously enjoyed a long relationship, responded to a mandate from government to cut its spending, and our funding – along with that of similar organisations – was slashed. While the Counselling Centre is unlikely to be on the receiving end of funding from the new suicide prevention initiatives, there is no doubt that in our corner of rural Aotearoa we are stopping people taking their own lives. We've been keeping accurate statistics for 26 years. Most of our clients are depressed. Over 50% are referred from local GP clinics and often the referral notes will say, 'Has suicidal thoughts but no plan to action.' We have on hand evaluations stating the counselling they received made a difference to their lives. Although our organisation is small, it reflects the broader population of Aotearoa. Similar community-based initiatives exist across the country, doing critical preventative work in the mental health realm. After my article was published, local National MP Suze Redmayne visited the centre. We drank coffee and talked and she appeared impressed by our service. She said she would chat with mental health minister Matt Doocey and maybe organise for him to visit us. To date, I haven't heard from either of them. Repeated emails to Oranga Tamariki asking them to restore our funding have also gone unanswered. Our service is still running thanks to philanthropic community support but we have had to reduce our availability from five days a week to four. The Auditor General's report released last month sharply criticised Oranga Tamariki's cuts, noting poor documentation, late decisions and inadequate understanding of the impact of the cuts on children and whanau. How can we have faith in a government that on one hand takes away proven preventative mental healthcare funding and on the other claims it can reduce something as complex as suicide rates? While I strongly back therapeutic support, especially free counselling, I also take a broader sociological view of improving overall mental health and wellbeing. Suicide prevention isn't just a matter of services or slogans. It demands that we reckon with how we live – as individuals and as a society. John Weaver's Sorrows of a Century: Interpreting Suicide in New Zealand (2014) is a powerful exploration of 12,000 coroners' reports from 1900–2000. He concludes that suicide must be understood within wider social forces: economic insecurity, war, illness, trauma. He advocates for 'deep prevention': long-term investment in meaningful employment, cradle-to-grave healthcare, and far-reaching education. He describes these ideas as 'utopian' but necessary, and emphasises extensive social action to improve lives before they slump into despair about the future. Since the book's publication, new stressors have emerged: a devastating pandemic, runaway technology, climate crises, and the psychological burden of constant global violence. In Aotearoa, the cost of living has risen dramatically. The cost of renting even substandard accommodation is taking a huge portion of household income. Every day I walk past long lines of hungry people queueing for food at a local food rescue. The government's suicide prevention plan also doesn't reflect on deeper holistic considerations – like our relationship to Papatūānuku. Contemporary capitalist society has severed us from the whenua and desensitised us from knowing the deeper parts of ourselves which then impacts our relationships with each other. Many people I meet – not just clients – struggle to name what they are truly feeling or to even locate that feeling within their own body. Capitalism demands our compliance and silence. Even our bereavement policy – three days' leave – suggests a culture that minimises death and grief. How can you return to your workplace bereaved by any death, and especially suicide, after just three days? To work with solutions for just an individual is pointless, and no plan, however well-meaning, will reduce suicide numbers if we are blind to the stresses of the socioeconomic and ecological environments where despair festers. As sociologist Alison Pugh writes, 'we are living through a crisis not just of loneliness but of human invisibility'. I haven't lost hope. Not because of any single plan, but because of the people I meet each day doing their best to heal and create fulfilling lives for themselves and their whanau. This is where suicide prevention truly lives – not in glossy plans, policies and shallow governmental rhetoric, but in community, care and the slow, quiet work of rebuilding what we've lost. TAUTOKO Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865
Scoop
6 days ago
- Scoop
Gaza: Health System Crumbles Amid Growing Desperation Over Food, Fuel
'Definitely, people get shot,' said Gaza-based medic Dr. Luca Pigozzi, WHO Emergency Medical Team Coordinator. 'They are victim of blast injuries as well and bodily injuries.' The WHO official's comments follow reports of another mass casualty incident on Thursday, this time involving a strike on a market in the central city of Deir al Balah. More than 20 people were killed and approximately 70 others were injured, said the UN aid wing, OCHA, with victims rushed to Al Aqsa Hospital, Nasser Medical Complex and two other health facilities. Hundreds killed seeking food In addition to the latest deadly incident, at least 410 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while trying to fetch aid from controversial non-UN aid hubs supported by Israel and the United States, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday. Providing high-quality medical care is very difficult in the war-torn occupied enclave today, 'particularly because we are speaking about a high volume of patients every time', Dr Pigozzi insisted. Health needs are widespread and dramatic, with almost 50 per cent of medical stocks completely depleted. WHO's first medical shipment into Gaza on Wednesday was its first since 2 March, when Israel imposed a full blockade on the Strip. In total, nine trucks carrying essential medical supplies entered the enclave with 2,000 units of blood and 1,500 units of plasma; all transited through the Kerem Shalom crossing. It is 'only a drop in the ocean' of what is required, Dr Pigozzi said. Aid obstacles remain Speaking to journalists from Jerusalem, WHO's Dr Rik Peeperkorn highlighted renewed difficulties in securing agreement from the Israeli authorities to allow more UN and partner agencies' supply trucks into Gaza. 'That's really unfortunate and should not happen, because you don't want to see those desperate people, and specifically desperate young men, risking their lives to get some food either,' he said, amid reports of a chaotic rush for supplies at non-UN distribution points and of starving Gazans taking goods directly off lorries. Before the Israeli blockade, the UN and its humanitarian partners demonstrated that their aid delivery system reached those most in need, insisted Dr Peeperkorn, WHO Representative in the occupied Palestinian territory. Today that is not the case because of repeated refusals by Israeli authorities to allow supplies into Gaza. 'Open the routes and make sure that we can get our supplies in,' he said. 'The market needs to be flooded with food and non-food items and water, et cetera, et cetera, and including essential medicines in a most cost-effective manner.' Denied entry Since March, aid teams have encountered a 44 per cent denial rate, meaning that for every 10 staff requesting entry, 'four to five of them are denied per rotation', WHO's Dr Pigozzi said. Echoing that message, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier insisted that people are starving, sick and dying across Gaza every day. 'They have been killed on the way trying to get medical help, they have been killed inside hospitals. Now, additionally, they are being killed on the way to get food items which are scarcely being provided,' he said. 'We have food and medical help minutes away across the border, sitting there and waiting for weeks and months by now. Just open the door.'
Scoop
28-06-2025
- Scoop
‘Our Kids Cry For Food': Most Gaza Families Survive On One Meal A Day
The meals which families are able to obtain are nutritiously poor — thin broths, lentils or rice, one piece of bread or sometimes just a combination of herbs and olive oil known as duqqa. Adults are routinely skipping meals in order to leave more for children, the elderly and the ill. And still, on average since January, 112 children have been admitted on a daily basis for acute malnutrition. '[When my children wake up at night hungry] I tell them 'Drink water and close your eyes.' It breaks me. I do the same – drink water and pray for morning,' as one parent said. Risking lives for food Due to these extreme food shortages, people in Gaza are forced to risk their lives on a daily basis to access small amounts of food. Since 27 May, 549 Palestinians have been killed and 4,066 have been injured trying to access food, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza. 'The majority of casualties have been shot or shelled trying to reach US-Israeli distribution sites purposefully set up in militarized zones,' said Jonathan Whittall, head of office for the UN humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Since the end of May, the US-Israeli backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been distributing aid in Gaza, bypassing the UN and established NGOs. The UN has said Palestinians who seek aid from the GHF face threats of gunfire, shelling and stampedes. 'We don't want to be out there. But what choice do we have? Our kids cry for food. We don't sleep at night. We walk, wait, and hope we come back,' one Palestinian told WFP. Systems near collapse Protracted conflict and bombardment have pushed almost all service systems in Gaza to the brink. As a result of fuel shortages, only 40 per cent of drinking water facilities are functional and 93 per cent of households face water insecurity. The fuel shortage is also negatively affecting the provision of medical services with medical equipment and medicine storage reliant on electricity. For the first time since the resumption of limited aid entry on 19 May, nine trucks containing medical items offloaded supplies on the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday. Displaced, over and over again Since the resumption of Israeli bombardment in Gaza on 18 March after a 42-day ceasefire, over 684,000 Palestinians have been displaced. And for almost all of them, this is not the first time. With over 82 per cent of Gaza either designated as an Israeli militarized zone or under a displacement order, there are few places — much less safe places — that the newly displaced can go. They have been forced to take shelter in overcrowded displacement camps, makeshift shelters, damaged buildings and sometimes just on open streets. Schools are no longer buildings of learning but of shelter. 'Schools have transformed into empty shelters, devoid of any elements of a safe learning environment,' said Kamla, a teacher with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Nuseirat. All of these shelters are experiencing rapidly deteriorating conditions as a result of insufficient shelter materials, according to Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the Secretary-General. 'No shelter materials have entered Gaza since 1 March, before the Israeli authorities imposed a full blockade on aid and any other supplies for nearly 80 days,' he said at a briefing on 19 June. 'While some commodities have subsequently been allowed in small quantities, tents, timber, tarpaulins and any other shelter items remain prohibited.' The UN and its partners have 980,000 shelter items prepared to dispatch into Gaza once authorization is granted by the Israeli authorities. 'Symbols of hope' Since the beginning of the violence in Gaza, UNRWA has continued to work tirelessly to provide displaced and injured Palestinians with many types of support. "Despite all this, the eyes and hopes of our community remain fixed on us. UNRWA staff are not merely service providers. In the eyes of people in Gaza, we are pillars of resilience, lifelines of stability and symbols of hope,' said Hussein, an UNRWA worker in Gaza City. But as fuel shortages continue and only small amounts of humanitarian aid — food, medicine, shelter materials — trickle through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the job of UNRWA workers and other humanitarians in Gaza is increasingly untenable. 'We have lost all the tools needed to work, so we have had to adapt,' said Neven, a psychosocial UNRWA worker in Khan Younis. Despite their best efforts, the bombardment and devastation of Gaza continues with children going hungry and some even expressing suicidal thoughts. 'I told my daughter her deceased father is safe, eating and drinking with God,' one mother said. 'Now, she cries every day and says, 'I'm hungry and want to go to my father because he has food to feed us.''
