The United Nations has ordered the evacuation of its staff from Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince as clashes between armed gangs, the police and civilians armed with machetes intensified in recent days.

A UN helicopter on Monday ferried evacuees – 14 at a time – from the capital to the northern city of Cap-Haitien, with some scheduled to take flights out of the country. This comes after the main international airport in Port-au-Prince was closed due to commercial flights being hit by gunfire while landing and taking off earlier this month.

The airlift also includes foreign embassies and other relief agencies, diplomatic and security sources told Al Jazeera.

A United States Air Force C-130 aircraft landed in the capital Port-au-Prince’s airport on Sunday to transport American diplomats who were ordered to leave the US embassy, the US Southern Command said.

Most foreign embassies are now effectively closed, with staffing limited to a handful of senior officials and security details.

In a statement, the UN said it was “adapting its operations”, with some staff moving to safer parts of the country and others leaving Haiti but continuing to work remotely.

“The United Nations is not leaving Haiti. Our commitment to the Haitian people remains unwavering,” Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said in a statement.

“We are temporarily reducing our footprint in the capital,” he added. “The critical humanitarian programmes in Port-au-Prince as well as support for the Haitian people and authorities continue.”

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, also announced late last week that it was suspending critical care in Port-au-Prince as it accused police of targeting its staff and patients, including threats of rape and death.

“Every day that we cannot resume activities is a tragedy, as we are one of the few providers of a wide range of medical services that have remained open during this extremely difficult year,” said Christophe Garnier, MSF mission director in Haiti.

Food for the Poor (FFTP), which runs feeding programmes in Haiti, said it was no longer able to make regular food deliveries because of gang disruptions, noting the closure of the airport and gang roadblocks that make access to the main seaports “extremely hazardous”.

While the police had made “good efforts to respond to gang advances”, FFTP Haiti director Mario Nicoleau said he worried about access to fuel for food trucks. “There are still lines for fuel at the gas stations, but this seems to be getting better. There is still lots of shooting in several areas every day, and people are still being pushed out of neighbourhoods,” he added.

‘Major operations’ against gangs

A 430-strong UN-backed security mission comprised mostly of Kenyan police, which was sent in June to support Haiti’s understaffed police department, defended its role in the face of public criticism of its “handling of the current security situation amid an apparent surge in gang activities”.

In a message on Sunday on X, the Multinational Security Support Mission to Haiti (MSS) said “major operations” were under way in a gang stronghold in the Delmas area of the capital controlled by a notorious gang leader and former policeman, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier. The gang leader later appeared on social media to say he had “crushed” the police attack and remained at large.

Recent developments in Haiti have left many Haitians questioning the role of MSS and its handling of the current security situation amid an apparent surge in gang activities.

MSS remains unwavering in its mission to support the Haitian National Police (HNP) in combating gangs,… pic.twitter.com/NuL3qWJkpf

— Multinational Security Support Mission to Haiti (@MSSMHaiti) November 24, 2024

Lionel Lazarre, deputy spokesman for Haiti’s National Police, did not return messages for comment.

The UN estimates that at least 220 people, including 115 gang members, were killed in more than a dozen coordinated attacks between November 11 and 19 that were aimed at forcing the government to resign, according to a confidential UN situation report obtained by Al Jazeera.

More than 4,500 people were reported killed in Haiti so far this year, the UN says. An estimated 41,000 people were forced to flee their homes in the last two weeks alone, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). There are overall more than 700,000 people displaced in Haiti due to the conflict, the IOM says.

“The scale of this displacement is unprecedented since we began responding to the humanitarian crisis in 2022,” Gregoire Goodstein, IOM Chief in Haiti, aid in a statement.

Children recruited

An unprecedented number of children have been recruited by gangs in Haiti, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday, underscoring a worsening protection crisis in the violence-ridden Caribbean island.

In a report, UNICEF said the recruitment of minors increased by 70 percent last year.

Uncertain future

The Haitian government, backed by the US and by other Caribbean nations, is calling for the UN Security Council to authorise a full-scale peacekeeping operation to be sent to Haiti. They argue that the Kenya-led MSS lacks equipment and numbers to make a difference, and remains far below the 2,500 personnel originally envisioned for the mission.

“This is not just another wave of insecurity; it is a dramatic escalation that shows no signs of abating,” Miroslav Jenca, UN assistant secretary general for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, said last week at a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the peacekeeping proposal.

But Russia and China oppose a UN peacekeeping mission, accusing the US of not listening to Haitian civil society and saying efforts should be focused on strengthening the Haitian police.