Hundreds of Kenyan police officers left for Haiti on the last week of June to lead a multinational force to assist the Caribbean Island in curbing violence and fighting violent gangs.
The support of the 400 police officers, the first of the 1,000 that Kenya is expected to send to lead the United Nations- (U.N.) sanctioned Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, will be fundamental to restore security and stability in the country.
The U.N. Integrated Office in Haiti welcomed the Kenyan officers’ deployment. “It is a crucial step in the fight to restore security in the Haitian capital and its surroundings and protect the rights of Haitians.”
For many citizens, the arrival was seen with optimism. “It would be a great step forward for me, for Haiti, and for a lot of people,” Orgline Bossicot, who sells carrots and charcoal at wholesale, told AP, adding that she is hopeful about the MSS mission.
It remains unclear when the rest of the force, which, according to the U.N., will also have support from troops from Belize, Benin, Chad, Bangladesh, the Bahamas, Barbados, and Jamaica, will deploy. In 2023, a U.N. Security Council resolution approved the MSS mission, but it has since faced delays. As of late April, the U.N.-administered trust fund for the mission had received $18 million in contributions from Canada, France, and the United States. The United States, the mission’s main financial backer, has pledged to contribute $300 million to the force as well as logistics and material support. “We need an effective and permanent multinational force to help the Haitian population to live and establish an order that will bring stability to the country,” Euclides Tapia, professor of International Relations at the University of Panama, told Diálogo.
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Criminal gangs have since intensified their activities and now control around 80 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince, the U.N. indicated.
“We are facing a moment of crisis and a turning point in the political, economic, and social history of this country, which although not an isolated event from the point of view of its history, is reaching its maximum consequences,” Tapia said.
More than 2,500 people were killed or injured by gang violence between January and March, 53 percent more than in the last three months of 2023, the U.N. reported. “The scale of human rights abuses is unprecedented in Haiti’s modern history,” said Volker Türk, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR).
According to researchers from InSight Crime, an organization that studies organized crime in Latin America, there are close to 200 criminal gangs across the country ranging from small groups of a few dozen youths sharing guns, to gangs of some 1,500 heavily armed men. Some of these gangs even have large-caliber rifles that can fire ammunition capable of penetrating fortifications and use drones to monitor police.
In recent months, these criminal gangs have come together and launched coordinated attacks on key infrastructure such as roads and ports, torched police stations, shut down the international airport and stormed the capital’s two main prisons, freeing more than 4,000 hostages, AP reported.
The face behind the violence
Jimmy Chérizier, the leader of Haiti’s most powerful gang, the G9, has become the face of the violence sweeping the country and has been blamed for numerous atrocities, including massacres and brutal attacks that have exacerbated the crisis, reported BBC Mundo.
Better known as “Barbecue” — according to him because his family ran a charcoal-grilled meat business, and according to witnesses due to the violence plaguing the country because he burns the houses and bodies of his victims — Chérizier is a former policeman who used to fight Haiti’s criminal gangs before joining them, BBC Mundo reported.
Barbecue has been blamed for several massacres in recent years that have left hundreds of people dead. In 2020, for instance, criminals killed at least 145 civilians, raped women and burned down many houses, BBC Mundo reported. More recently, in early June 2024, Barbecue claimed the murder of three agents of the Haitian National Police’s Anti-Gang Unit (UTAG). The officers were in an armored vehicle in a neighborhood of Delmas when they were ambushed, reported Dominican newspaper Diario Libre.
Social networks are among the tools Barbecue uses, where has consolidated a strong influence. Through various platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, Barbecue spreads terror with images of executed bodies that he himself ordered and sends threatening messages to the international community and his country’s authorities, BBC Mundo reported.
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An example of this was the message he sent weeks before the resignation of Haiti’s Prime Minister last March: “If Ariel Henry does not resign and the international community continues to support him, they will lead us directly to a civil war that will end in genocide,” BBC Mundo reported. Henry was forced to resign when he was unable to return to the country as main international airports were shut down due to the violence.
Another of Chérizier’s most recent messages was posted on June 13, threatening the National Police. “I know you are coming, but you have no idea what a surprise I have for you. Come and get me if you can. I will destroy the country with all of you” he posted on his TikTok account.
Humanitarian crisis
The upsurge of violence in Haiti has unleashed a humanitarian crisis, according to a new report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). It is estimated that in recent months some 580,000 people have been displaced — 5 percent of the Haitian population — most of whom have fled the country’s capital to other provinces. According to the U.N., these people live in precarious conditions, in makeshift camps, or seek refuge in other communities where they do not have the resources to accommodate them.
The same organization has raised the alarm about rampant sexual violence against women and girls as young as 12 years old, whom members of criminal gangs harass and sexually abuse. “The situation in Haiti is catastrophic. We continue to receive reports of killings, sexual violence, displacement and other violence, including in hospitals,” Türk said in a statement.
For her part, Catherine Russell, Senior Inter-Agency Advocate for Haiti and UNIFCEF executive director denounced the violence against children. “At its core, the crisis in Haiti is a protection crisis,” said Russell, who said that between 30 and 50 percent of armed groups have minors in their ranks, and that nearly 400 serious violations against the rights of people were recorded.