you have a situation where tens of thousands of haitians have been forced from their homes, they re sleeping in public plazas, on the streets, others have also fled the country so it really is a dire humanitarian situation that the un in the last couple of weeks have been trying to raise attention to. and just focusing on that situation of the capital being controlled, as you ve just pointed out there, jacqueline, for a large part, by gangs. and we ve also heard some really horrendous reports that in a bid for control and in a bid to instilfear, there have been reports of sexual violence essentially being used in particular against girls, against women. yes, catherine russell, the head of unicef, was recently down there, she talked about an 11 year old who had been raped and just gave birth a couple of days ago. this is the new tactic the gangs are using. you re having babies having babies and they re are having to carry the child of their rapist.
the caribbean correspondent at the miami herald, who is based in port au prince. thank you so much for being with us here on bbc news. to begin with, just paint a picture of the situation that people are facing there in haiti right now. this is a country of approximately 12 million residents and almost half, 5.2 million, are in need of humanitarian assistance and this includes 3 million children. just last month we had deadly floods, we had another earthquake on the southern panhandle. the situation with gangs, especially in the capital, they control over 60% of port au prince. it makes it difficult to get around, it makes it difficult for people to go out to work, to just get basic food. you have a situation where tens of thousands of haitians have been forced from their homes, they re sleeping in public plazas, on the streets, others have also fled the country so it really is a dire humanitarian situation that the un in the last couple of weeks
to get around, it makes it difficult for people to go out to work, to just get basic food. you have a situation where tens of thousands of haitians have been forced from their homes, they re sleeping in public plazas, on the streets, others have also fled the country so it really is a dire humanitarian situation that the un in the last couple of weeks have been trying to raise attention to. and just focusing on that situation of the capital being controlled, as you ve just pointed out there, jacqueline, for a large part, by gangs. and we ve also heard some really horrendous reports that in a bid for control and in a bid to instilfear, there have been reports of sexual violence essentially being used in particular against girls, against women. yes, catherine russell, the head of unicef, was recently down there, she talked about an 11 year old who had been raped and just gave birth a couple of days ago.