Gang violence in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, increasingly widespread, is leading to the displacement of “large numbers of people” and “alarming” human suffering, a UN official denounced this Thursday.

So far this year there have been more than “48,000 new displacements, most of them families,” due to the violence of heavily armed gangs that “are advancing into new areas of the capital,” said Ulrika Richardson, humanitarian affairs coordinator. of the UN in Haiti, in a videoconference to the accredited press at the organization’s headquarters in New York.

“In recent weeks we have seen that there are a huge number of people who have fled their neighborhoods, as gangs occupy them,” he warned, highlighting the need for more funds to carry out humanitarian work.

“There is enormous fatigue, human suffering on an alarming scale” and “a lot of tension in the streets,” he said after lamenting the “structural political instability.”

The Caribbean country has experienced weeks of chaos since armed gangs launched a battle against controversial Prime Minister Ariel Henry, with attacks on police stations, prisons and other public buildings, until they got his resignation.

Last week, Henry agreed to resign and make way for the creation of a seven-member presidential council, whose formation has been delayed by internal dissension.

“You will remember that (…) at the beginning of February, we said that January was the most violent month for two years and, unfortunately, soon we could say that it has been confirmed that February has been even more violent,” with 2,500 people murdered , kidnapped or injured since the beginning of the year, he recalled.

“The gangs continue to have a systematic view of sexual violence, and they do it to have control, and also for revenge,” he said, after remembering that the capital’s airport remains closed to international flights and the port partially paralyzed.

Of the 11.4 million Haitians, more than 5.5 million depend on humanitarian aid, particularly minors, since “25% suffer from chronic malnutrition.”

Of the $674 million required for this year, the UN only has 6.5% of this amount. “This means that if we had more money, we could do a lot more, even despite these difficulties on the ground,” Richardson said.