\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cMadame, please, can you stop the armed groups? Can you stop what the gangs are doing to us?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her plea captured the reality confronting children across Haiti, where violence has disrupted schools, upended families, and made even the simple act of going to class an act of courage.<\/p>\n
As children around the world head back to school, the start of the year in Haiti unfolds once again under the shadow of insecurity, displacement, and hardship. Children must cross gang-controlled zones to reach school, risking crossfire and forced recruitment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet in a country battered by gang violence, school also remains a space of hope \u2013 where children can learn, reunite with their classmates and, despite everything, begin to imagine their future.<\/p>\n
For Etzer, a father of four, internally displaced and an advocate for the rights of displaced people, returning to class means far more than simply going back to school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After fleeing their neighborhood because of gang violence, many displaced children are reuniting with friends and rebuilding a social life brutally cut short by the crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchooling is like therapy for these children,\u201d he says. But in many areas, learning conditions remain extremely difficult.<\/p>\n Jasmide, mother of seven-year-old Woodayline, is glad classes are reopening. But behind that hope lie the hardships facing many families: hunger, unemployment, insecurity, and the cost of schooling, which weighs particularly heavily on those who depend on private institutions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe Haitian parents are in favor of classes reopening \u2013 but not under the sub-human conditions being imposed on us,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Those concerns are widely shared among displaced families and communities scared by violence. Everywhere, Narayan says, she hears the same plea: to see children going to school safely.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAbove all, we want safety and continuity of education,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n The scale of the crisis is staggering. UNICEF’s latest figures, for the 2024\u20132025 school year, show that more than 1,600 schools were affected by insecurity \u2013 disrupting the schooling of over 240,000 children and the work of some 7,500 teachers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Woodayline and Etzer’s four children are among the many for whom a classroom is no longer a given.<\/p>\n In Port-au-Prince, where up to 90 per cent of the capital is under gang control, some schools have closed, become inaccessible, or been destroyed. Others now shelter families with nowhere else to go.<\/p>\n For many children, the danger begins before they even reach the classroom.<\/p>\n \u201cJust yesterday, two young girls were kidnapped on their way to school. It was the day after the school year began,\u201d Narayan recounts.<\/p>\n Such incidents cause \u201cenormous fear and anxiety\u201d among families, she explains \u2013 to the point that some parents now hesitate to let their children travel alone.<\/p>\n And the fear does not vanish once students are seated in class. A child who has been displaced or exposed to violence can hardly concentrate the way they used to. The teachers themselves may have fled their own neighborhoods or may no longer be able to reach their schools.<\/p>\n In response, UNICEF is helping more than 174,000 children this year across the country’s West, Greater North, and Greater South regions.\u00a0<\/p>\n The work ranges from distributing school supplies and helping children enroll to creating safe learning spaces, providing psychosocial support, training teachers to recognize and respond to signs of trauma, and rehabilitating damaged schools.<\/p>\n
\n Children attend class in Delmas, Haiti, as escalating gang conflict disrupts the country’s school system.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHope and fear<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Deadly insecurity<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n A young girl sits in a temporary camp set up for people who have fled their homes due to violence.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nKeeping classrooms open<\/strong><\/h2>\n