Haiti — Populations Flow Monitoring — Impact of insecurity on movements of people from the capital to provinces #5 (08 March — 09 April 2024)

Since end of February 2024, the security situation has deteriorated in the Metropolitan Area of Port-Au-Prince (MAPAP), the capital of Haiti. In addition to creating displacement within the MAPAP, generalized insecurity are pushing more and more people to leave the capital to find refuge in provinces, taking the risks of passing through gangs-controlled routes. In order to monitor these movements towards provinces and inform appropriate response strategies, DTM has launched data collection at several of the most used bus stations in the capital (see page 5 for more details on the methodology). In one month of implementation of this activity (since 8 March), movements of 94,821 people leaving the MAPAP have been observed  (see pages 3 and 4 for more details on their profile). The majority of them (58%) took means of transport heading towards the Grand Sud departments (Grande’Anse, South, Nippes and South-East). It should be noted that this region already hosts more than 116,000 people who had in vast majority, fled the MAPAP in recent months (see the report on displacement in the Grand Sud). Half of flows headed towards 3 main destination municipalities: Jérémie (in Grande’Anse), Les Cayes (South) and Léogâne (West).

It should be emphasized that provinces do not have sufficient infrastructures and host communities do not have sufficient resources that can enable them to cope with these massive displacement flows coming from the capital.

It should be noted that at the beginning of March, when the security situation worsened, people who were already internally displaced (IDPs) were the first to begin leaving the capital. Over time, more and more people who were not IDPs are also leaving: as of 10 March, 86% of people leaving the MAPAP were IDPs. One month later, this percentage dropped to 60%, while almost 40% were those who had never fled their residence and who decide to leave it and seek refuge in provinces. This further describes the deterioration of the situation in the capital, given that leaving the capital could be a relatively quicker decision to make for a person who was already displaced than for someone who was still in their residence and decides to leave it for seek refuge in provinces.