A United Nations report warns that gang violence is intensifying in regions with routes to Haiti’s capital. The United Nations has appealed to the international community to bolster its support for Haiti after a report revealed that gang violence has claimed 4,864 lives from October to June.
Over 20 per cent of the fatalities took place within the Centre and Artibonite departments, signalling that extreme violence is spreading to the zones around the capital, Port-au-Prince.
In a report issued on Friday, the UN described how the increasing footprint of gangs such as Gran Grif in the areas seems to be part of a wider plan aimed at dominating major routes linking the capital to the north of Haiti and bordering its neighbour, the Dominican Republic.
“Such expansion of gang territorial control can pose a significant threat to the spread of violence and the growth of transnational trafficking in weapons and individuals,” the report stated.
Among its recommendations was for the international community to better police the sale of firearms to Haiti and to continue to offer support for a Kenya-led security mission aimed at strengthening Haiti’s local law enforcement.
In a statement, Ulrika Richardson, the UN’s resident coordinator in Haiti, explained that propping up the country’s beleaguered police force is key to restoring security.
“Human rights violations outside Port-au-Prince are becoming more acute in parts of the country where the State presence is very weak,” she added. The international community should reinforce its assistance to the authorities, which have seen their first responsibility to protect the Haitian population reaffirmed.”
The report states the violence in the surrounding areas of Port-au-Prince deteriorated in October, when a massacre was staged in the town of Pont Sonde in the Artibonite department. The Gran Grif gang had established a checkpoint on a crossroads there, but local self-defence groups were inciting residents to drive around it, the UN says.
In a seeming retaliatory action, the gang attacked Pont Sonde. The UN reports gang members firing “indiscriminately at houses” along the road to the checkpoint, killing at least 100 individuals and injuring 16. They also burned 45 houses and 34 cars.
The pandemonium displaced over 6,270 individuals who were forced to seek refuge in Pont Sonde for their safety, adding to an already acute crisis of internal displacement.
The UN observes that, up to June, over 92,300 individuals had been displaced from the Artibonite department, and 147,000 from the Centre — a 118-per-cent rise over the department’s figures from December.
A total of close to 1.3 million individuals have been displaced across the nation. The Pont Sondé massacre galvanised a backlash, and security forces temporarily moved to the region. That presence was not, however, maintained, and Gran Grif has again established control in recent months.
