NRC, IOM tell press Haiti’s crisis has deepened; urge more funding and support for local responders

Representatives of the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Organization for Migration told a press briefing that Haiti’s humanitarian crisis has deepened, with roughly 6.4 million people — more than half the country — requiring assistance and only about one in 10 public hospitals with inpatient capacity fully operational.

The briefing, delivered by Jurijs Adalla of the Norwegian Refugee Council and Maria Moita of IOM, described widespread violence, large-scale displacement and acute shortages of shelter, health care and protection. "6,400,000 people, more than half of the population of the country require humanitarian assistance," Adalla said, and he warned that "the bodies of women and girls are being used as the battlefield in Haiti." Moita added that nearly 1.5 million people are internally displaced, with Port-au-Prince the epicenter of the crisis.

Why this matters: the speakers said the scale and complexity of needs have grown since their last visit. Adalla cited sharp increases in child recruitment and "grave violations against children" in 2025. Both speakers described displacement sites as congested, lacking basic services such as latrines and cooking areas, and reported that humanitarian partners record hundreds of forced returns daily from the Dominican Republic.

Adalla set out three principal asks for the international community: accelerate direct, flexible, multi-year funding and decision-making power for Haitian organizations; protect humanitarian space by maintaining a clear distinction between security operations and humanitarian action; and invest in both immediate humanitarian response and longer-term recovery. He noted that the humanitarian response plan for Haiti was only 28% funded.

In a subsequent question-and-answer session, journalists pressed the speakers on deportations, funding gaps and an emerging multinational security deployment. Moita said IOM asks that deportations be carried out with dignity and that IOM be given access to manifests and arrivals so it can provide assistance. Adalla said NRC could scale up operations to more hotspots if funding were provided, and emphasized that humanitarian actors must be able to negotiate acceptance and access in areas where armed groups control territory.

On security deployments, Adalla said it is too early to judge their long-term effects and reiterated that humanitarian actors must remain distinct from security forces to preserve access and aid-worker safety. On coordination with development standards, Moita said humanitarian shelter responses are being linked to development planning through the Humanitarian Coordinator role to help align short-term shelter with sustainable recovery goals.

The briefing concluded with a call for urgency and solidarity: the speakers said the resilience of Haitian communities must be matched by international funding and operational support to prevent the situation from worsening.

The session ended without formal decisions; speakers said the next steps are increased advocacy for funding and continued on-the-ground coordination.