Haiti’s health care system is on the verge of collapse, the United Nations Children’s Fund warned in a statement this week.

“The combination of violence, mass displacement, dangerous epidemics and increasing malnutrition has bent Haiti’s health system,” said Bruno Maes, the UNICEF representative in Haiti. “But the strangling of supply chains may be what breaks it.”

UNICEF said that six of 10 hospitals in Haiti can barely operate because of violence in the country’s capital, Port-Au-Prince, and that the escalating violence is depriving children of lifesaving medicine and health supplies.

The statement comes as Kenyan police are soon expected to start a U.N.-backed multinational mission in Haiti aimed at tackling gang violence.

UNICEF said it is using alternative delivery routes to supply Haitian children with critical medicines and vaccines.

Haiti reported 82,000 suspected cases of cholera between October 2022 and April 2024. About 4.4 million people in the country urgently need food assistance.

UNICEF warned that inadequate food access increases the risk of child-wasting and malnutrition.

“We cannot allow vital supplies that could save children’s lives to remain blocked in warehouses and containers,” Maes said. “They must be delivered now.”

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.