WCC executive committee minute on Haiti

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.
Isaiah 40:1

The Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches, meeting online on 12-16 May 2025, recalls the statement adopted at its meeting in Cyprus in November 2024, and notes that the situation for the people of Haiti has deteriorated markedly in the meantime, with vastly too little international attention and engagement.

The surge in violence and deaths due to the actions of gangs and self-defence groups, and during security force operations, has continued to escalate. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, at least 1,617 people were killed and 580 others injured in such violence, and at least 161 kidnappings for ransom were recorded.  The UN has raised alarm over the at least 802 people killed during security operations, 20% of them civilians. Additionally, 65 summary executions were reportedly carried out by police officers and the Government Commissioner of Miragoâne. A further 60,000 people have been newly displaced, adding to the one million Haitians already forced from their homes as of late 2024.

We highlight UN Special Representative María Isabel Salvador’s recent report to the UN Security Council that a “deliberate and coordinated” campaign is being waged by organized crime groups to expand territorial control and paralyse the capital, Port-au-Prince, and that the magnitude of the violence “has sown panic among the population”.

At least 39 health facilities and over 900 schools have shut down due to insecurity. Cholera outbreaks are spreading, and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is on the rise – especially in displacement sites where shelter, sanitation and protection are severely lacking.

Some 347 SGBV incidents were reported in the five months to February 2025, according to UN data. Collective rape was the most common violation, accounting for 61% of cases. At least 35 children were killed, and ten others injured, during gang attacks, police operations, or vigilante acts. Many were also trafficked and forcibly recruited by gangs.

We join Haiti’s Ambassador to the UN, Ericq Pierre, in lamenting that Haiti is “slowly dying”.

Adding to this crisis, there has been a major escalation in deportations of Haitians by the neighbouring Dominican Republic, with around 20,000 people deported in April alone. In particular, there has been a sharp increase in the numbers of extremely vulnerable deportees — especially women, children, and new-borns. Recently, the Dominican Republic deported dozens of pregnant women, mothers who had just given birth, and children, back to crisis-torn Haiti as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration.

We urge attention by the [international community]^[1] to the root causes of the longstanding and recurrent crises in Haiti.

We refer to and reiterate the recommendations made in our statement in November 2024, and in addition underline the need to engage with the government of the Dominican Republic regarding its actions affecting the welfare of Haitian people and people of Haitian descent.

We urge all members of the [international community] to remember Haiti and the appalling suffering of its people. We appeal to all States to increase support to the Multinational Security Support (MSS) Mission as a matter of urgent and existential necessity.

We call all WCC member churches to renewed Christian solidarity with the people of Haiti, and to prayer for God’s compassion and an answer to the cries of the people of this troubled land.

^[1] Some members registered a reservation with regard to the use of the term “international community”, since in their view and in light of the experience of the Gaza conflict nothing that could be described as the “international community” exists any longer.