UN warns gangs consuming Haiti despite help for police
Published:Wednesday | March 15, 2023 | 6:14 PM
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The United Nation's special envoy to Haiti warned Wednesday that the ongoing training and resources the international community is providing to Haiti's national police force is not enough to fight increasingly violent gangs.
Helen La Lime, head of the UN's Integrated Office in Haiti, unexpectedly joined an Organization of American States meeting in Washington, D.C., saying it's time to look at new partnerships as she called once again for the deployment of a specialised foreign force.
“We're not getting the job done,” she said.
“We need to get down to the business of building this country back.”
Powerful gangs have been infiltrating once peaceful communities in the Haitian capital and beyond, with experts estimating that they now control about 60% of Port-au-Prince.
They have pillaged neighbourhoods, raped adults and children and kidnapped hundreds of victims ranging from US missionaries to a hot dog street vendor in a bid to control more territory, with violence worsening since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
“It is urgent for the OAS…to understand that the worsening security situation on the ground has reached its peak, and armed gangs now roam the country unfettered,” said Victor Généus, Haiti's foreign affairs minister.
Top Haitian officials including Généus and Prime Minister Ariel Henry have repeatedly sought international boots on the ground, a request first made in October that has gone unheeded by the UN's Security Council, which has instead implemented sanctions, as have the US and Canada.
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