Haiti leader appeals for international help as gangs wage what he calls a war

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — One of Haiti’s transitional leaders told the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday that the country is at war with gangs and urged the world to help confront what he described as relentless violence and widespread hunger. “Just a four-hour plane ride from here, a human tragedy is unfolding,” Laurent Saint-Cyr said. “Every day, innocent lives are extinguished. ... Entire neighborhoods are disappearing.” “It’s important to say this: Haiti is experiencing war, a war between criminals that want to impose violence as a social order and an armed population that is fighting for human dignity and freedom,” Saint-Cyr added.

Violence between the country’s gangs and police, as well as with vigilante groups, has left more than 3,100 people dead from January to June, with another 1,189 injured, according to the United Nations. The mayhem has displaced more than 1.3 million people across Haiti in recent years, while more than half of Haiti’s nearly 12 million inhabitants were expected to experience severe hunger through the first half of the year. The refugees settle where they can, such as the shelter found by Kettia Jean Charles and her family in the Delmas 31 low-income area of the capital, Port-au-Prince. No longer as safe as it once was, it’s still a refuge compared to the Solino neighborhood where she ran a beauty salon — now a ghost town after gangsters drove out most remaining locals in November. “I used to sleep in a bed, had my own business, and my children went to school. Now, I am living this catastrophic life,” Charles, seven months pregnant, said as she and her husband and three children shelter under a makeshift roof and rummage for food. “I am asking for help so I can get out of this situation.”

Last year, a United Nations-backed mission led by Kenyan police officers launched operations in Haiti intended to bolster an understaffed and underfunded local police department and push back against gangs. More than a year later, the mission still has fewer than 1,000 personnel, far below the 2,500 envisioned, and about $112 million in its trust fund — roughly 14% of the estimated $800 million needed per year. The United States and Panama have urged the U.N. Security Council to authorize a new force of 5,550 in Haiti, a proposal backed by Saint-Cyr. “It is crucial to mobilize a strong force with a clear mandate and with adequate material, logistical and financial resources,” he said.

In the once-thriving Solino neighborhood, gangs took electricity, toilets and light fixtures, and nearly every home now bears charred or bullet-riddled walls. “All I dream about now is leaving this camp so that my children can go to school and contribute to society,” Charles said.

The international community has been weighing options for a larger stabilization presence as Haiti confronts gang violence, mass displacement and rising hunger. Advocates say a robust, well-funded mission with a clear mandate is needed to restore safety and enable humanitarian relief, though officials acknowledge it will require broad international coordination and sustained commitment.