GENEVA, Switzerland (CMC) – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is warning of a massive surge in child armed group recruitment in Haiti.

According to UNICEF, the ongoing emergency in the French-speaking Caribbean country is crushing children’s chances of an education and a better future as scores of youngsters are recruited by heavily-armed and violent gangs.

UNICEF’s representative in Haiti, Geetanjali Narayan, told reporters that just last month, armed groups destroyed 47 schools in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, adding to the 284 schools destroyed in 2024.

“The relentless attacks on education are accelerating, leaving hundreds of thousands of children without a place to learn,” she said. Speaking in Geneva, Narayan described reports of “yet another attack” on Thursday.

“Videos capture piercing screams of children lying on the floor, motionless with fear,” she said, calling the scene a “chilling reminder that these attacks do damage far beyond the classroom walls”.

“A child out of school is a child at risk,” she warned.

UNICEF previously reported a 1,000 per cent increase in sexual violence involving children between 2023 and 2024 in the country, and stated that children also comprise half of the record one million-plus displaced to date by the violence in Haiti.

After sharing the latest displacement data, Ulrika Richardson, the UN’s top aid official in Haiti, insisted on Thursday that youngsters continue to bear the brunt of the crisis.

Narayan stressed that, last year, child recruitment into armed groups “surged by 70 per cent”.

“Right now, we estimate that up to half of all armed group members are children, some as young as eight years old,” she shared.

The UNICEF representative described the different roles played by children within armed groups, depending on their age and gender.

She said eight to 10-year-olds are used as messengers or informants, while younger girls are tasked with domestic chores.

“As they get older, the children are playing more and more active roles in terms of participating in acts of violence,” Narayan said.

Asked about the impact of being recruited into a gang at an early age, she spoke of “indescribable” damage.

“At that age, the child’s brain is still forming. They haven’t developed their understanding of the world. And so, to be part of an armed group where you are surrounded by violence at all times and where you yourself may be forced to commit acts of violence, has a profound effect on the child,” she said.

Narayan stressed that UNICEF is “working actively” to support the release, demobilisation and reintegration of child armed group members.

The UN said this includes a “handover protocol” signed in 2024 between the United Nations, including UNICEF, and the Government of Haiti.

The UN agency said it needs US$38 million for critical interventions, but lamented that funding is at just five per cent.

The UN said that, in 2024, the humanitarian community launched a US$600 million plan for Haiti, receiving just over 40 per cent of the funding. It said around 60 per cent came from the United States alone.

UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said that, on a global scale, following the US humanitarian aid freeze, the agency “received termination notices” for grants, affecting humanitarian and development programming.

“We continue to assess the impact of those termination notices on our programs for children,” he said. “But we already know that the initial pause has impacted programming for millions of children in roughly half the countries that we work.”