Haiti is “Hell on Earth,” Claims UN Expert
Nuray Lydia Oglu, Kanako Mita, and Sawako Utsumi
Modern Tokyo Times
William O’Neill, the United Nations-designated expert on human rights in Haiti, describes the situation in the country as “hell on earth.”
He highlights the immense suffering endured by ordinary citizens in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. He warns that the web of criminality, gang violence, and murders is also spreading to other regions of the country.
UN News reports, “Armed gangs – predominantly in the capital Port-au-Prince – are parasitically extracting financial resources from the population and perpetrating horrific acts of violence, he (O’Neill) says – but they’re just one cog in a larger cycle of impunity, corruption and violence.”
Amid Haiti’s ongoing crisis, the humanitarian response plan has received just 9% of the required emergency funding—making it the worst-funded humanitarian plan in the world, according to the United Nations.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), over 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in Haiti last year. In just the first six months of 2025, more than 3,100 additional deaths have already been recorded—highlighting a deepening crisis that shows no signs of slowing down.
Lee Jay Walker, an analyst at the Modern Tokyo Times, states: “The UN reports a harrowing reality marked by extrajudicial killings, human trafficking, murder, child exploitation, gang rape, and other severe human rights abuses.”
The ongoing collapse of law and order has displaced over one million people—nearly one-tenth of Haiti’s entire population.
UN news reports, “Gang rape is now the predominant form of sexual violence, accounting for 85 per cent of all documented cases. In mid-May, two women in Cité Soleil were brutally gang raped before being shot dead and burned in what appeared to be a perverse act of gang ‘justice’ for entering an off-limits neighbourhood.”
Approximately five million Haitians are facing food insecurity, while the country’s health system remains in a state of crisis. As a result, mortality rates are rising due to a range of compounding factors—intensifying the desperation felt by the nation’s most vulnerable communities.
Equally troubling for the people of Haiti is their deep mistrust of politicians, the United Nations, and international charities—sentiments largely shaped by the country’s troubled recent history. This includes numerous child sex abuse scandals, the devastating cholera outbreak linked to the UN, and a host of other persistent challenges.
It remains to be seen whether internal actors in Haiti and the international community can stabilize the country in the short term and subsequently lay a firm foundation for lasting stability.
Haiti exemplifies internal and external failure over many decades.
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