Contingent Mission in Haiti Exacerbates Gang Offensives

A Haitian child sits in a displacement camp in Léogâne. Credit: UNICEF/Maxime Le Lijour

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 2024 (IPS)

Over the past week, the deployment of the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti and extended efforts by the Haitian National Police has led to local gangs ramping up their offensives in order to hold onto their territories. Humanitarian organizations fear that displacement will skyrocket without more efficient security controls and relief responses.

According to a report from the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, gangs are predicted to control over 85 percent of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti’s capital and most populous city. This has led to the city being isolated from the rest of the nation, severely disrupting communications and critical supply chains.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that as of November 15, over 20,000 civilians had been displaced due to gang violence over the course of 4 days. They added that due to targeted attacks on airports and seaports, as well as unsafe roads due to gang occupancy, that Port-Au-Prince is in a state of “near-total paralysis”.

The most vulnerable populations in displaced communities are expected to be hit the hardest by the isolation of Port-Au-Prince. Humanitarian aid efforts have faced increasingly restrictive impediments, leading to a critical lack of resources.

IOM’s Chief in Haiti, Grégoire Goodstein, has confirmed that only one fifth of Port-Au-Prince is accessible at this time. Goodstein adds: “the isolation of Port-au-Prince is amplifying an already dire humanitarian situation. Our ability to deliver aid is stretched to its limits. Without immediate international support, the suffering will worsen exponentially”.

Nationwide hunger has reached a new peak in the past three months. The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that approximately 5.4 million people, or 50 percent of the population, face acute food insecurity. According to figures from the Global Hunger Index, approximately 22 percent of children face adverse health effects from malnutrition, with roughly 5.6 percent of children dying before the age of 5.

The UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) reports that 2024 marks the most violence observed in over two years, with over 2,500 people being killed as a result of gang violence. On November 14, armed groups attacked the Solino neighborhood in Port-Au-Prince, which is one of the few areas that has evaded gang control. Gunfire between the national police and the Viv Ansamn gang forced families in the area to flee.

Jean-Jean Pierre, a resident in the Solino neighborhood, recalled fleeing from the area with hordes of other civilians. “We barely made it out. I’ve lived here 40 years of my life and I’ve never seen it this bad. These gangs are more powerful than the police,” Pierre informed reporters.

Gender-based violence has also risen in the final quarter of the year. Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said sexual violence in Haiti “is pervasive and very likely to have reached levels not seen before”. According to IOM, sexual violence has been used as a weapon of terror by gangs, disproportionally targeting women and children. Additionally, 94 percent of women and girls faced heightened risks of sexual violence.

In a press release from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Michelle Strucke, the director of the CSIS Humanitarian Agenda, reports that there has been a 49 percent increase in sexual violence on girls and women recorded in 2024. Due to the scale of power that gangs possess in the Port-Au-Prince and Artibonite River regions, where sexual abuse cases are most concentrated, perpetrators receive widespread impunity, essentially preventing victims from acquiring any form of justice.

The MSS mission in Haiti has drawn considerable backlash from humanitarian organizations and Haitian citizens due to its inefficacy in dispensing of gang violence. Due to the mission being severely underfunded, response efforts have been greatly outmatched by gangs, which have increased their brutality since the deployment of this mission.

“It’s not back to where we started — it’s worse. More areas have been taken by gangs, more people had to leave and flee their homes and are homeless. It’s not any better,” said Sister Paésie Philippe, a French nun residing in Cité Soleil, Port-Au-Prince.

Although U.S. ambassador to Haiti Dennis B. Hankins confirmed that the U.S. Embassy has been in communications with the gangs in an effort to promote security, he remarked that they “certainly do not negotiate with gangs.” Experts have opined that the contingent mission’s failure to act effectively in this crisis has emboldened Haitian gangs to re-emerge and escalate the brutality of their attacks.

“I think they are essentially trying to get power or at least negotiate to get power. Ultimately, if the situation deteriorates further, they’ll be in a position to negotiate, whether you like it or not,” said Robert Fatton Jr., a professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia.

The United Nations has pledged that the MSS mission would continue to receive funding as it extends the MSS mission’s deployment in Haiti for another year and enlists a 2,500 officer-strong force. However, with only a small percentage of the 600 million dollars required to enlist such a force, along with uncertainty that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will voluntarily allocate U.S. funds to Haiti, it is difficult to predict if the mission will achieve any kind of progress in eradicating gang violence.

IPS UN Bureau Report