UNITED NATIONS (CMC)—The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Monday warned that essential services in the town of Belladère, on the border with the Dominican Republic, are coming under growing strain as more people seek shelter there, including displaced families and deported migrants.
It said nearly half of the more than 121,000 Haitians deported by the Dominican Republic into Haiti since the beginning of the year have crossed through Belladère, placing severe pressure on already overstretched reception facilities on the Haitian side of the border.
UN spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, during the daily news briefing, said during a joint mission on June 28, led by OCHA and UN agencies and our partners, “our teams witnessed the growing challenges that families and unaccompanied children are facing as they arrive at the border”
He said families displaced by violence in the nearby commune of Mirebalais have also sought refuge in Belladère.
“We and our humanitarian partners are providing hot meals, cash assistance, protection services, and medical supplies, but the scale of needs continues to outpace available resources.”
Dujarric said immediate priorities include expanding capacity at reception sites, ensuring the protection of unaccompanied and separated children, and strengthening the support for vulnerable deported migrants and displaced families.
He said severe underfunding continues to hamper the response.
Dujarric said the 2025 Haiti humanitarian response plan is the least funded of all humanitarian plans globally, “and as you know, they are all pretty underfunded, if not extremely.
“More than halfway through the year, we have received less than US$75 million. There are apartments for sale in New York for more than $75 million – that’s just eight per cent of the US$908 million we need. The lack of money severely limits our partners’ efforts to scale up life-saving assistance in high-risk areas like Belladère,” Dujarric added.