PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
Gangs in Haiti have escalated their violence and expanded operations outside the capital, even attacking small boats and kidnapping personnel from cargo shipping companies, the top U.N. official in the country said Tuesday.
Special representative Maria
Isabel Salvador told the U.N. Security Council that the situation has worsened
in the last three months, with more than 700,000 people now displaced in the
country and the political process facing “significant challenges.”
She said Haitians across the
country continue to suffer as gang
activities escalate and expand, “spreading terror and fear,
overwhelming the national security apparatus” and worsening an “extremely dire”
humanitarian situation.
Gangs are also attacking small
boats carrying Haitians from the capital, Port-au-Prince, to other areas of the
country, and they have kidnapped personnel from international cargo freight
companies, forcing them to suspend service to Haiti, Salvador said.
Catherine Russell, executive
director of the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, told the council the
“catastrophic situation” for Haiti’s children that she reported six months ago
has deteriorated further. She said over 360,000 of those currently displaced are
children.
“Armed groups are regularly
committing grave rights violations against children including killing and
maiming,” she said. “And so far this year, we have seen a staggering increase
in reported incidents of sexual violence against women and children, including
gender-based violence.”
Russell said gangs are also
recruiting children and using them in their operations.
“We estimate that children
account for 30% to 50% of armed group members,” she said. “They are being used
as informants, cooks, and sex slaves, and they are being forced to perpetrate
armed violence themselves.”
The power of gangs in Haiti
has grown since the 2021 assassination
of President Jovenel Moïse, and they are now estimated to control up to 80%
of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The surge
in killings, rapes and kidnappings has led to a violent uprising by
civilian vigilante groups.
The Security Council voted on
Sept. 30 to extend the mandate of the Kenya-led multinational force trying to
help Haiti’s national police tackle the gang violence.
The force was supposed to have
2,500 international police but the U.N.’s Salvador said just around 430 are
deployed, some 400 from Kenya and the rest from the Bahamas, Belize and
Jamaica. Earlier this month, Kenya’s President William Ruto said another 600-strong
contingent would be sent to Haiti in November.
Salvador, who heads the U.N.
political mission in Haiti, said the U.N. trust fund that finances the
multinational force and relies on voluntary contributions, “remains critically
under-resourced, which could impact deployment and impede it from carrying out
its tasks in support of the Haitian National Police.”
On the political front, Leslie
Voltaire was sworn is as the new leader of Haiti’s transitional presidential
council earlier this month, in the fallout of serious
corruption allegations against three of its members.
The council was
created this year after targeted gang attacks forced Haiti’s former
prime minister to resign, leaving the country without a leader. The council
works alongside new Prime
Minister Garry Conille and is responsible for helping run the country
and organizing general elections by February 2026.
Salvador told the Security
Council that despite initial political advances, tensions between the council
and the government have increased, creating growing frustration among Haitians
and eroding trust in the current political process.
She said the U.N. mission is
working “to strengthen collaboration within the two-headed executive, urging
them to set aside differences and focus on addressing insecurity, governance
reforms, and electoral preparations.”
Meanwhile, nearly half the
population doesn’t have enough to eat and gang control over key access roads
has severely affected the delivery of humanitarian aid and essential services,
Salvador said.
“As a result, prices have
increased, and many communities are on the verge of collapse due to food
shortages and the ongoing violence that has left large swathes of agricultural
land unproductive,” she said.
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