UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) – The United Nations on Thursday launched an appeal for more than $900 million to help 3.9 million people in 2025 in Haiti, a country ravaged by gang violence where nearly half the population suffers from acute food insecurity.

“The humanitarian situation in Haiti continued to deteriorate throughout 2024. Armed violence has caused immeasurable suffering, particularly among women and children,” said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in its 2025 humanitarian plan.

In recent days, attacks have intensified in the capital Port-au-Prince and clashes have been reported between security forces and armed men.

On Thursday, automatic weapon fire was heard in several neighborhoods, and displaced people erected barricades in the streets to protest the security situation and demand to be allowed to return home, according to an AFP correspondent.

Around six million people — about half of Haiti’s population — are in need of aid, but chronic underfunding for humanitarian operations means the OCHA plan focuses on the most needy, including those who have been displaced, those living in gang-controlled areas and cholera-hit communities.

The requested $908.2 million is a sharp increase from 2024, when OCHA called for $674 million — an appeal that was only 44-percent funded.

Hunger rates have worsened, with 5.5 million people now experiencing acute food insecurity (up 11 percent compared to March 2024), of which two million are in food emergencies and 6,000 people are facing famine, OCHA said.

In one year, gangs have also further tightened their grip on the capital and ramped up violence.

The UN recorded 5,600 deaths linked to gang violence in 2024, in a 20-percent increase compared to 2023, as well as 1,500 kidnappings, nearly 6,000 gender-based violence cases, 69 percent of which were sexual assaults.

There was also a 70-percent increase in the number of children forcibly recruited by armed groups between mid-2023 and mid-2024.

More than a million people are now displaced within the country, an increase of 48 percent compared to September 2024.

OCHA estimated 350,000 Haitians were expected to be forcibly expelled from the neighboring Dominican Republic this year, after 200,000 were deported in 2024.

A Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), under UN auspices, has been in Haiti since 2023.

But the mission, which includes about 1,000 police officers from six countries, of the 2,500 originally hoped for, faces logistical and funding problems.

To make it an “effective force” against gangs, but without transforming it into a UN peacekeeping mission, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday he would soon propose to the Security Council to modify the mission so that logistics would be financially covered by the UN