The new force can now have a maximum of 5,500 uniformed personnel, including police officers and soldiers, unlike the current mission, which is just law enforcement.
US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said the vote by 12 council members “to transform the Multinational Security Support mission to the new gang suppression force, a mission five-times the size of its predecessor” showed the “international community was sharing the burden.”
“This resolution offers Haiti hope. It is a hope that has been rapidly slipping away as terrorist gangs expanded their territory, raped, pillaged, murdered and terrorized the Haitian population,” he said.
Washington co-sponsored the enlargement push with Panama.
Currently, just 1,000 police officers, mostly from Kenya, are deployed in Haiti under the Multinational Security Mission (MSS) to support the overwhelmed Haitian police in their fight against rampant gang violence.
But the mission, which was approved in 2023, has had mixed results.
Violence-ravaged Haiti is ‘a nation at war,’ its leader Laurent Saint-Cyr warned at the United Nations on Thursday, as he appealed for help from the international community to defeat gangs that have overrun the Caribbean country. AFP
“This marks a decisive turning point in my country’s fight against one of the most serious challenges in its already turbulent history,” said Haiti’s ambassador to the UN Ericq Pierre.
“Multiple heavily armed gangs have extended their control over large parts of the territory, particularly in the capital.
“These gangs are no longer mere groups of petty criminals. They have for some time now become powerful criminal organizations that mock and challenge the authority of the state and even threaten regional stability.”
‘Merciless gangs’
Haiti’s Laurent Saint-Cyr, who heads the country’s Transitional Presidential Council, had thrown his support behind the US and Panamanian proposal to evolve the MSS into a more resilient force for an initial period of one year.
Laurent Saint-Cyr, chairman of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, speaks during the General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters. AFP
“The Council can help restore peace in a nation currently suffocated by merciless gangs,” Panama’s ambassador to the UN Eloy Alfaro de Alba said ahead of the vote.
Kenya’s president William Ruto said last week that “with the right personnel, adequate resources, appropriate equipment and necessary logistics, Haiti’s security can be restored.”
The major force boost will be accompanied by the creation of a support office within the UN, suggested several months ago by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to provide the required logistical and financial support.
China had expressed skepticism about the role of the MSS without political transition in Haiti, but it abstained during the vote to create it in 2023, as did Russia.
China and Russia abstained again on Tuesday’s vote.
“Resorting to military force to combat violence with violence at this juncture is not only unlikely to succeed, but could further complicate Haiti’s already intractable situation,” said China’s ambassador to the UN Fu Cong.
Children in a shelter for people displaced by gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. AFP
He warned the resolution left specifics like the rules of engagement and force composition unanswered, saying Beijing did not block the resolution only “in light of Haiti’s dire security situation.”
The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti has long suffered at the hands of violent criminal gangs that commit murders, rapes, looting, and kidnappings against a backdrop of chronic political instability.
The situation has worsened significantly since early 2024, when gangs drove then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign.
The country, which has not held elections since 2016, has since been led by a Transitional Presidential Council.
Kenya suffered its first casualty after one police officer was on Sunday February 23 shot and killed in a clash with criminal gangs in Seguin in Pont-Sonde, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti commander Godfrey Otunge said the victim was among a team that had embarked on a mission to crush a gang operating in the area when he was shot and seriously injured.
He was airlifted to Level Two Aspen hospital where he succumbed to the injuries.
His colleagues responded and killed dozens of the criminals, officials said.
It marked the first casualty on the Kenyan team since they arrived there on June 25, 2024 to help the Caribbean nation contain criminal gangs.
Kenya has about 800 officers of the 1,000 needed.
Officials explained that over the past week, Kenyan police officers have been conducting continuous security operations in Artibonite, successfully neutralizing several gangs.
In response, the residents of Seguin in Pont-Sonde began calling for similar action in their area.
“Hearing their pleas, the brave Kenyan police officers answered the call.
This is the price our courageous officer paid—he was killed while fighting for the people of Haiti. His fellow officers, unwilling to accept the loss, pursued the gang member responsible and immediately neutralized him,” spokesman Jack Ombaka explained.
The El Salvador Causality Evacuation (CASEVAC) team who responded in a record time and the doctors at the hospital did all they could do to save the officer’s life in vain.
Haiti gang leader ‘Barbecue’
The Kenyan team is part of the group of a UN-approved international force that will be made up of 2,500 officers from various countries.
There are however concerns that even if the team manages to dislodge the bandits from this stronghold, the absence of an immediate and lasting occupation by the police or the army will allow them to return quickly.
But even 1,000 security personnel or the mission’s targeted goal of 2,500 is insufficient, security experts say.
There are around nearly 900 police and troops from Kenya, El Salvador, Jamaica, Guatemala and Belize.
Chronic instability, dictatorships and natural disasters in recent decades have left Haiti the poorest nation in the Americas.
Last year, Haiti saw a record number of neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas fall to armed gangs, despite the presence of foreign forces and a new U.S.-backed transition government.
As the gangs took over neighborhoods and carried out some of the worst massacres in recent memory, they also deepened the country’s humanitarian crisis as tens of thousands more Haitians were forced to flee their homes.
The United Nations said more than 5,600 people were killed by gang violence last year, an increase over the previous two years, and over 1 million Haitians are now displaced.
The international security mission, while approved by the U.N. Security Council, is not a United Nations operation and currently relies on voluntary contributions.
Two weeks ago, the US delivered at least 600 assorted guns to the mission boosting ongoing operations against criminal gangs in the Caribbean nation.
The donation made on February 10 also included nine pickups, two trucks, two excavators, two armored loaders and tens of bullets.
The United States has exempted the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) Mission in Haiti from a funding freeze impacting US-funded international aid initiatives.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the position on Thursday in a telephone call with President William Ruto, State House reported.
Ruto and Rubio reaffirmed “our mutual commitment to strengthening our existing cooperation,” a dispatch reporting the conversation stated.
“Our discussion confirmed that the United States has specifically exempted its support for the Multinational Security Support (MSS) Mission in Haiti from the broader pause on federal assistance, recognizing the critical need to sustain momentum for the mission and its role in stabilizing Haiti and restoring order,” President Ruto asserted.
President Ruto’s confirmation of the funding status of the mission came as Kenya dispatched the fourth contingent of police officers serving under the MSS in Haiti on Thursday.
The 144 officers add to the 600 already stationed in Port-au-Prince.
Ruto’s National Security Advisor, Ambassador Monica Juma, had indicated that the US would exempt the MSS from aid cuts, allaying fears of a crippling funding freeze.
Juma’s statement followed reports that the US had issued a stop order on funding for the Kenya-led Haiti Multinational Security Support Mission, potentially plunging the UN-backed campaign into a funding crisis.
“It is true the U.S. contribution to the UN Trust Fund for MSS Haiti is on pause, affecting about USD 15 million in support. It is also true that the MSS mission is a priority and a beneficiary of the waiver,” Juma said.
“Meanwhile, there are sufficient funds in the UN Trust Fund for Haiti from other countries (approximately USD 110 million) to continue operations,” she explained.
Funding appeal
AFP had quoted Stéphane Dujarric, the UN Secretary-General’s spokesperson, as saying the move would impact USD 13.3 million in pending aid.
“We received an official notification from the U.S. asking for an immediate stop-work order on their contribution,” Dujarric told AFP.
Funding gaps, however, have remained a significant hurdle for the mission since Kenya deployed troops in June 2024.
The mission’s funding has topped President Ruto’s agenda with US officials, including during his State Visit to the United States in September 2024.
Prior to his arrival in Washington, Ruto had made a detour to Port-au-Prince, where he met Kenyan troops to reassure them of support amid concerns over delays in the provision of security hardware and financial assistance.
President Joe Biden’s administration had provided USD1.7 million out of its USD15 million pledge to a voluntary fund set up to support the mission, while Canada committed USD63 million.
The UN has raised USD110 million since the fund’s inception, an amount deemed insufficient to support the desired 2,500-member security mission.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly called for international support, warning that Haiti’s capital could become overrun by gangs.
President Ruto’s phone call with Secretary Rubio also included a discussion on the forthcoming Joint Summit of the EAC and SADC, which he is set to co-chair on Saturday with President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe.
The Joint Summit, to be hosted by President Samia Suluhu in Dar es Salaam, will review the security situation, including the humanitarian crisis, in eastern DRC, where M23 rebels took over the city of Goma following intense fighting with government and SADC forces.
More than 100 Kenyan police arrived in Haiti’s capital on Thursday to reinforce a security mission whose future has been in limbo, after the U.S. froze some funding before passing a waiver to unlock a separate batch of funds.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking from Santo Domingo alongside Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader, acknowledged that the current mission, backed by the United Nations, was not enough to solve the current crisis.
Violent gangs, armed with weapons largely trafficked from the U.S., have united in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince and now control most of the city. Gangs also control a swathe of other areas, including agricultural heartlands.
“The solution for Haiti is in the hands of the Haitian people, in the hands of the Haitian elite,” Rubio said. “But we will help, we cannot ignore the problems there.”
A new contingent of 144 Kenyan police officers was sent to Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Thursday to join the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission aimed at combating gang violence in the Caribbean nation.
The security mission, approved by the U.N. Security Council but not led by the U.N., has struggled to make headway in fighting gangs as its numbers remain far under target and it relies on voluntary contributions from member nations.
A contingent of 144 Kenyan soldiers touched down in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, with Kenyan President William Ruto adding he had spoken to Rubio about the mission.
The U.N. warned this week that the U.S. had frozen more than $13 million in funding for the security force that it had already paid into the U.N.’s dedicated fund, as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 90-day pause on foreign aid.
The move threw the already-shaky mission into limbo, with Haitians worried it would be shuttered altogether.
The State Department later said that Rubio had approved waivers on $40.7 million in foreign assistance to the Haitian National Police and the security mission.
That assistance will not, however, go into the dedicated U.N. fund, a State Department spokesperson said.
The violence in Haiti has displaced record numbers of residents, many internally but others fleeing to the neighboring Dominican Republic, with which Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola.
Rubio said the U.S. would not ask Dominican President Abinader to accept an influx of Haitian migrants.
Abinader in recent months launched a deportation drive to return some 10,000 migrants, mostly Haitians, to their home countries every week.
Abinader on Thursday tapped a military officer as drug czar, similar to Canada’s “fentanyl czar” post created to appease demands by Trump to crack down on the flow of illicit drugs.
Rubio will also sign a waiver to unlock funds for foreign aid programs in the Dominican Republic, he said.
National Security Advisor to President William Ruto, Monica Juma, has reassured the public that the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission in Haiti will continue operations despite a recent freeze in U.S. funding.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Juma confirmed that there is approximately $110 million (Sh12.9 billion) available in the United Nations Trust Fund designated for Haiti.
“There are sufficient funds in the UN Trust Fund for Haiti from other countries (approximately $110M) to continue operations,” Juma stated, emphasizing the mission’s priority status despite financial hiccups.
This comes in the wake of the United States government’s decision to freeze over $13 million (Sh1.7 billion) in aid to the mission, a move announced following President Donald Trump’s 90-day foreign aid pause.
The pause, effective from January 20, when Trump took office, aims to review international aid in line with his “America First” policy. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric noted that of the $15 million initially committed by the U.S., $1.7 million had already been disbursed, leaving $13.3 million frozen.
The MSS in Haiti, while approved by the UN Security Council, operates independently of direct UN control and relies heavily on voluntary contributions from member states.
The mission, which aims to stabilize the security situation in Haiti, has seen contributions from countries like Canada, which has provided more than half of the funds in the trust.
Despite the funding, the mission is struggling with only about 900 police and troops from Kenya, El Salvador, Jamaica, Guatemala, and Belize on the ground, far below the planned 2,500 personnel.
The UN trust fund was established with the encouragement of the U.S. to facilitate contributions, but the response from member states has been tepid, with many citing donor fatigue.
The current funding scenario paints a picture of a mission that is under-resourced but committed to continue its humanitarian and security operations in Haiti.
Juma’s statement underscores Kenya’s determination to see the mission through, despite international financial volatility.
As the situation develops, the international community’s response to the funding needs of the MSS will be critical in determining the mission’s effectiveness and the broader implications for peacekeeping in volatile regions.
The National Police Service officers deployed as part of the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti have intensified their patrols in major towns across Haiti in efforts to pacify the conflict-prone region.
Superintendent of Police Edwin Kolil says these patrols will continue to ensure peace and allow Haitians to return to their homes.
“The members of the public in this country, they are very good, they interract with us everyday, and they give us information concerning the movement of each and every gang. And we get that information we react promptly to maake sure that we push them aware and we make sure that they stay safe,” he said.
The NPS officers, in collaboration with their colleagues from the National Haitian Police, have been conducting both ground and aerial surveillance using drone technology to monitor the security situation and ensure that the gangs, who have been terrorizing Haitians, do not access these areas.
Kenyan police officers began patrolling Port-au-Prince six months ago as part of a UN-backed mission to battle armed gangs that who control 80 percent of the capital.
Several hundred Kenyan police officers have been deployed to the Caribbean nation.
Since February 2024, the surge of violence led by “Viv Ansam,” a type of gang coalition, has claimed the lives of over 5,000 people. Furthermore, more than 2,000 women and girls have suffered sexual violence under a regime of terror that has isolated the capital city and blocked access to rural areas.
World Vision warns this protracted insecurity and hunger crisis is deepening hunger and malnutrition, in a country where more than 5 million Haitians face food insecurity, according to the UN.
The UN’s migration agency said there were now 108 severely overcrowded displacement sites in Port-au-Prince for such families, up from 73 a year ago. They include schools, churches and even government ministry buildings which have been occupied by destitute Haitians unsure when – or even if – they will be able to return home. The number of displaced people has tripled over the last year from about 315,000 in December 2023 to 1.04 million now.
At least 110 mostly elderly people have been brutally murdered by gang members in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, according to a human rights group.
The National Human Rights Defence Network (RNDDH) said a local gang leader had targeted them after his son fell ill and subsequently died.
The gang leader reportedly consulted a voodoo priest who blamed elderly locals practising “witchcraft” for the boy’s mystery illness.
The United Nations said the number of people killed in Haiti so far this year in spiralling gang violence had reached “a staggering 5,000”.
Warning: This story contains details some readers may find upsetting
While details from the massacre are still emerging, the UN’s human rights chief Volker Türk on Monday put the number of people killed over the weekend “in violence orchestrated by the leader of a powerful gang” at 184.
The killings happened in the Cité Soleil neighbourhood of the capital.
According to reports, gang members seized scores of residents aged over 60 from their homes in the Wharf Jérémie area, rounded them up and then shot or stabbed them to death with knives and machetes.
Residents reported seeing mutilated bodies being burned in the streets.
RNDDH estimated 60 were killed on Friday while another 50 were rounded up and murdered on Saturday, after the gang leader’s son had died of his illness.
While RNDDH said that all the victims were over 60, another rights group said some younger people who had tried to protect the elderly had also been killed.
Local media said that elderly people believed to be practitioners of voodoo had been singled out because the gang leader had been told his son’s illness had been caused by them.
Rights groups said the man who had ordered the killings was Monel Felix, also known as Mikano.
Mikano is known to control Wharf Jérémie, a strategic area in the port of the capital.
According to Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, a Haiti expert at the Global Initiative against Transnational Crime (GI-TOC), the area is small but hard for the security forces to penetrate.
Local media said that residents had been prevented from leaving Wharf Jérémie by Mikano’s gang, so news of the deadly killings was slow to spread.
The group forms part of the Viv Ansanm gang alliance, which controls much of the Haitian capital.
Haiti has been engulfed in a wave of gang violence since the assassination in 2021 of the then-president, Jovenel Moïse.
Data gathered by GI-TOC shows there was a decline in the murder rate between May and September of this year after rival gangs had reached an uneasy truce.
But attempts by the gangs to expand their territory beyond their strongholds in the capital have led to particularly bloody incidents in the past two months, with ordinary residents rather than rival gang members being increasingly targeted.
On 3 October, 115 locals were killed in the small town of Pont-Sondé in the Artibonite department.
That massacre was reportedly carried out by the Gran Grif gang in retaliation for some residents joining a vigilante group to resist attempts by Gran Grif to extort locals.
If confirmed, the death toll given by the UN for this weekend’s killings in Cité Soleil would make it the deadliest incident so far this year.
With gangs in control of an estimated 85% of Port-au-Prince and increasingly large swathes of the countryside, hundreds of thousands of Haitians have been forced to flee their homes.
According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 700,000 people – half of them children – are internally displaced across the country.
Gang members often use sexual abuse, including gang rape, to sow terror among the local population.
In a report published two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch researcher Nathalye Cotrino wrote that “the rule of law in Haiti is so broken that members of criminal groups rape girls of women without fearing any consequences”.
Attempts by the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission to quell the violence have so far failed.
The international police force arrived in Haiti in June to bolster the Haitian National Police but is underfunded and lacks the necessary equipment to take on the heavily armed gangs.
Meanwhile, the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) – the body created to organise elections and re-establish democratic order – appears to be in turmoil.
The TPC replaced the interim prime minister last month and seems to have made little progress towards organising elections.
“They reign over a mountain of ashes,” GI-TOC’s Romain Le Cour Grandmaison writes of the council in his report
Ready, that is the statement of the government as Kenya is prepared to dispatch several hundred police officers from the multinational force to Haiti.
This is the first cohort of officers who have already received appropriate training and been recalled from leave this week, according to information reported by the New York Times (NYT) on Tuesday.
Kenya will deploy close to 1,000 police officers to Haiti for a peace enforcement mission, just 14 days before President William Ruto’s state visit to the United States on May 23, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The American newspaper reports that the selection process for officers to be deployed happened last year in October.
Citing insider information, it’s reported that some 400 officers were chosen for the first deployment and began training, with an additional 100-member support staff that includes medics. Another, similarly sized group would also prepare to deploy soon.
The officers said they received physical and weapons training from Kenyan and American security personnel and were given details about how Haitian gangs operate.
They also took French classes and lessons on human rights and Haiti’s history. The police officers said they were aware of previous failed international interventions in Haiti. But they argued that those interventions had been largely viewed by Haitians as occupation forces, while their goal is to support the local police and protect civilians.
Besides the prestige that comes with serving abroad, officers said the additional pay that comes with their service is another motivation.
The officers were chosen from Kenya’s General Service Unit and the Administration Police, two paramilitary units tasked with dealing with everything from riots and cattle rustling to protecting borders and the president.
Other countries involved in Haiti
The multi-national force mission, sanctioned by the UN Security Council, will be spearheaded by the Kenyan police and is aimed at curbing gang violence in Haiti following the installation of a new American-backed transitional government.
More than 100 Air Force aircraft are expected to arrive and leased by the U.S. Department of State.
In that context, the Haitian National Police (PNH) could be receiving reinforcements from foreign troops since May 26.
So far, seven countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean have shown their willingness to provide men for the Multinational Security Support Mission, which will be deployed in Haiti.
These countries are Kenya – which offered to lead the operations – Benin and Chad among Africans; Bahamas, Jamaica and Barbados among the Caribbean countries, as well as Bangladesh. Suriname recently announced that it will send a group of troops to Haiti.
Among the nations mentioned, Chad and Bangladesh have experience in international deployments in peace missions, but the United Nations (UN) has always made it clear that now the task will be to support the PNH in the fight against armed gangs.
Jitters
However, Kenyans are increasingly getting jittery about the mission. In January a Kenyan court rejected the plan to send police officers to Haiti.
Kenya had initially aimed to enter Haiti in early January, but legal obstacles and a power vacuum delayed the plan.
Despite facing challenges, Nairobi, according to President Ruto, remains committed to sending its forces to the gang-afflicted Caribbean nation to help restore order.
The Miami Herald reported last week that American civilian contractors have begun arriving in Haiti to assist in preparing for the arrival of Kenyan police, according to a top official from the administration of US President Joe Biden.
A U.S. military cargo plane arrived on Saturday at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince. An operations base for the international mission is being set up at the airport.Credit…Odelyn Joseph/Associated Press
The Pentagon, already having committed Sh26 billion to support the mission, is tasked with preparing a base for the incoming forces.
According to Todd D. Robinson, the US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, an initial deployment of Kenyan police officers is being coordinated to coincide with the arrival of Ruto in Washington later this month.
State visit
The White House confirmed that Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will host Ruto and his wife Rachel for a state visit on May 23, commemorating the 60th anniversary of US-Kenya diplomatic relations.
Robinson declined to give an exact date or the number of officers to be deployed as part of the long-awaited multinational security support mission.
Washington is reported to have transported civilian contractors to support the Pentagon to build out the area where the Kenyan support mission will stay while in Haiti.
But Republican lawmakers in Congress have ignored a request by the State Department to release Sh5 billion of the Sh13 billion it has pledged to support the mission.
The American administration has been criticised for not giving lawmakers clear details about the force. UN member states have shown reluctance towards the mission, possibly signalling fatigue within the international community regarding interventions in Haiti.
Despite the substantial funding required for the mission, countries are seemingly turning a blind eye, with the UN deployment fund currently at only Sh2 billion.
“The funds were provided by Canada, France, and the United States,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
He noted that Kenya, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Chad, and Jamaica had notified the UN Secretary-General in writing of their intention to provide boots, as requested by the UN Security Council.
The Haitian police, having been outgunned and outnumbered, have struggled to curb gang violence. In some cases, they’ve been unable to stop invasions of neighbourhoods and the takeover of police stations as the gangs tightened their grip on the capital Port-au-Prince.
The police have succeeded in fighting back attempts to take over the National Palace, the Central Bank, and the international airport, which they’ve protected with help from members of the small Haitian Army.
Frank Elbe, director general of the Haiti National Police, indicated that since the attacks began on February 29, his officers had not only engaged in combat with the gangs but also constructed a buffer zone surrounding the airport.
Elbe’s residence was set on fire by gangs during the chaos. “
We’ve reinforced the security perimeter inside and outside of the airport,” he said.
“The police have carried out a lot of operations that have allowed for improvements in the security at the airport. We’ve also demolished a lot of houses.”
He said the goal is to build the confidence needed for US airlines to resume commercial flights to Haiti, which have been suspended since March 4.
“The second phase of our strategy is to dismantle the gangs and create a space where the government can provide services to neighbourhoods once occupied by gangs,” he said.
That is where the foreign forces, led by Kenya, will help, Elbe said.
“They can help us in the operations that we are going to do to dismantle the gangs.”
While Ruto’s government says Kenya is now ready to deploy to Haiti, some fear the mission will fail as not enough police officers will be sent to fight the gangs.
Haitian gang leaders have vowed to fight the deployment, raising concerns of even worse violence in a country where thousands of people have been killed in recent months and more than 350,000 have fled their homes in the past year.
Ruto’s critics have accused him of illegally pursuing the deployment and not publishing a document stipulating how Kenyan forces can operate in Haiti. They also plan to file another legal challenge accusing his administration of contravening earlier court orders around the mission.
International obligations
Ruto cites the need to support a “mission for humanity” and ensure Kenya fulfils its international obligations.
He commissioned church leaders to meet with Haitian law enforcement, military representatives, and a gang leader to discuss Kenya’s security mission.
In March, as armed groups escalated their insurgency in the capital Port-au-Prince and plunged Haiti deeper into a historic humanitarian crisis, Kenyan pastors advising President Ruto’s government met for three days at a hotel in Nairobi to pray for the police officers.
In a serene sky-blue conference room within the confines of the Weston Hotel, three Kenyan pastors convened with Haitian and American ministry leaders alongside Kenya’s ‘praying’ First Lady Rachel Ruto.
In 2021, assassins killed former Haitian President Jovenel Moise at his residence in Port-au-Prince. In late February, gang-related violence halted operations at the country’s main airport, leaving several police officers dead and paralysing the capital.
The population is severely deprived of enjoying its human rights in Haiti, where state institutions are close to collapse, warned a UN report on Thursday.
“Corruption, impunity and poor governance, compounded by increasing levels of gang violence, have eroded the rule of law and brought state institutions… close to collapse,” according to the UN Human Rights Office report.
Haiti has been under siege internally since mid-2021 when gangs took over infrastructure and violent upheaval saw battles for turf. Medical help has evaporated and starvation looms as food supplies are almost non-existent.
“The impact of generalised insecurity on the population is dire and deteriorating … and the population is severely deprived of enjoying its human rights,” added the report, covering the period from Sept. 25, 2023 to Feb. 29, 2024.
A rampage by gangs March 18 targeted previously peaceful upscale neighborhoods in the country’s capital, and at least a dozen people were killed.
Thousands have been killed in the conflict while hundreds of thousands have fled the country.
The UN study said the number of people killed and injured due to gang violence significantly increased in 2023, 4,451 killed and 1,668 injured.
Separately, the number of victims skyrocketed in the first three months of 2024, 1,554 killed and 826 injured up to March 22.
Haiti gangs have created havoc in the country leading to a nearly ungovernable situation.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said tackling insecurity must be a top priority to protect the population and prevent further human suffering.
“It is equally important to protect institutions essential to the rule of law, which have been attacked to their very core,” he added.
According to the report, enhancing security alone “will not bring long-lasting solutions” and calls for policies aiming at the restoration of the rule of law and the prevention of violence to be pursued.
“It is shocking that despite the horrific situation on the ground, arms keep still pouring in. I appeal for a more effective implementation of the arms embargo,” Turk said.
