The Haitian Government denies issuing a ban on the wearing of jerseys at schools.

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – The Haitian Government has described as “completely false” reporting circulating on social media that students have been banned from wearing jerseys to school.

In a statement, the Ministry of National Education said it also “strongly condemns this attempt at disinformation aimed at sowing confusion within schools, among parents, and among students”.

The social media post had alleged that the new “regulation” had come into force, but the ministry reiterated that the information is untrue. Children in Haiti wear school uniforms that include jerseys, blouses, and shirts.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Health, through the Directorate of Family Health (DSF) and its mobile school clinic, has resumed its interventions in schools for students.

“These interventions include general consultations, oral healthcare, deworming, vitamin A administration, and awareness sessions on personal hygiene, handwashing, cholera prevention, sex education, and gender-based violence.”

Haiti has been rocked with criminal gang warfare ever since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, with the gangs seeking to overthrow the interim administration that Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé now heads.

The United Nations has estimated that 2024 has been the deadliest year for children in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries since the surge in armed violence began, with 184 children killed, including 61 girls.

The Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (FMP) has expressed its solidarity with student groups’ calls for the resumption of activities at the State University Hospital of Haiti (HUEH).

This public hospital has been closed since the armed gang attack in the city center in February 2024.