The United Nations migration agency is warning about the ever-worsening humanitarian crisis in Haiti, as a siege imposed by heavily armed gangs on the capital Port-au-Prince stretched into a second month.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that the surge of violence since February this year has reached “unprecedented levels,” resulting in rampant food insecurity and multiple displacements.
As the French-speaking Caribbean country grapples with this unparalleled crisis, IOM said families continue to struggle to secure even the most necessities, as desperation exacerbates.
“While assistance provision was easier during the aftermath of earthquakes, today, it is an increasingly daunting task,” said Philippe Branchat, head of IOM in Haiti.
“Humanitarian staff, including our own, are facing unparalleled security challenges, balancing the imperative to assist others with the stark realities of personal risk and displacement.”
The IOM said the crisis extends its reach far beyond the confines of Port-au-Prince, affecting communities across Haiti and leaving over 360,000 people displaced nationwide.
It said for the estimated 100,000 internally displaced people living in temporary sites, conditions are deplorable, amplifying the depths of suffering. IOM said their needs include access to food, healthcare, water, psychological support, and hygiene facilities.
It said its psycho-social team has encountered cases of suicide tendencies, “which once was a taboo topic, but is now becoming more commonly disclosed, especially among displaced populations.”
The lack of economic opportunities, coupled with a collapsing health system and shuttered schools, casts “a shadow of despair, driving many to contemplate migration as their sole viable recourse,” according to the IOM.
However, for most Haitians, the prospect of regular migration remains “an insurmountable hurdle, leaving irregular migration as their only semblance of hope,” the agency reported.
Despite the worsening security situation, IOM said 13,000 migrants were forcibly returned to Haiti by neighbouring countries in March, 46 per cent more than the previous month.
Nearly 3,000 of them have received humanitarian assistance upon arrival, with an additional 1,200 migrants benefiting from psychosocial support, according to IOM, noting that together with its partners, they are delivering assistance to the areas where it is most needed.
Meanwhile, a new report has indicated that some of Haiti’s gangs have bigger arsenals than the police as criminal groups are becoming “stronger, richer and more autonomous” by using arms trafficking to fuel their growth.
The regional representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Sylvie Bertrand, said the consequences have plunged the Caribbean nation into an ongoing political and humanitarian crisis.
She said there are “unprecedented levels of lawlessness”.
In its latest report, UNODC said that from Russian AK-47s and United States-made AR-15s to Israeli Galil assault rifles, a spike in trafficking increasingly sophisticated weaponry has gripped Haiti since 2021.
The report states that many of these illegal weapons are behind recent news reports of random sniper attacks, mass lootings, kidnappings and attacks on prisons to free thousands of inmates, which, in turn, has displaced more than 362,000 Haitians who are fleeing the violence.
Some gangs are using arms trafficking to fuel efforts to expand their reach and claiming strategic locations that are stymying efforts to halt the illegal entry of even more weapons, according to independent expert and author of Haiti’s Criminal Markets, Robert Muggah.
“We have a very disconcerting and unsettling situation in Haiti, probably the worst I’ve seen in over 20 years of working in the country,” Muggah said.
Trafficked predominantly from the US, these “deadly arsenals” mean that gangs have “firepower that exceeds that of the Haitian National Police”, according to the UN panel of experts charged with monitoring sanctions the Security Council imposed on Haiti in 2022 amid worsening armed gang violence.
Bertrand said the problem is that as more weapons get in, the more gangs expand their control over such strategic points as ports and roads, making it even more difficult for authorities to prevent arms trafficking,
UN-backed analysis found that almost half of Haiti’s 11.7 million citizens needs food assistance, and mass displacement continues as people flee to safety. Hospitals are reporting a sharp rise in gunshot deaths and injuries.
“The increasing number of weapons in circulation as well as the upgrading of arsenals is having an impact on the lethality and severity of the wounds being inflicted,” medical staff in Haiti told the UN panel of experts.
An estimated 150 to 200 armed groups now operate across Haiti, a country which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, said Muggah, who is an independent expert on security and development.
Muggah said currently around 23 gangs operate in the metropolitan area of ort-au-Prince, divided into two large coalitions: G-Pèp, led by Gabriel Jean Pierre, also called Ti Gabriel, and the G9 Family and Allies, led by Jimmy Chérizier, known as Barbecue.
In recent months, the two rival factions joined forces “in coordinated attacks” targeting the airport, the National Palace, the National Theatre, hospitals, schools, police stations, customs offices and ports, “effectively forcing their will and expanding their territory”, Muggah said.
“Gangs are in fact controlling very strategic areas of the capital and the main roads connecting Port-au-Prince to the ports and to the land borders as well as coastal towns and areas, where we see a lot of the trafficking happening,” he said.
With over 150 gangs operating in and around the country, Muggah said all roads access in and out of Haiti’s capital are now under some gang control.
The UN panel of experts found that arms trafficking is a very lucrative business, even in small quantities, as the demand for weapons is increasing and prices are high.
For example, a 5.56mm semi-automatic rifle costing a few hundred dollars in the US is regularly sold for US$5,000 to US$8,000 in Haiti, the UN said.
Findings further documented the presence of “ghost guns”, which are privately manufactured with relative ease by purchasing parts online, “thus avoiding the control processes that apply to factory-made firearms.”
“These weapons are not serialized and are, therefore, untraceable,” the UN said.
A small number of Haitian gangs are highly specialised in the acquisition, storage and distribution of weapons and ammunition, according to the UNODC report.
Most of the firearms and ammunition trafficked into Haiti, whether directly or via another country, originate in the United States, said Bertrand, adding that the weapons and bullets are typically purchased from licensed retail outlets, gun shows or pawn shops and shipped by sea.
Suspicions have also emerged of illegal operations involving unregistered flights and small airports along the south Florida coast and the presence of clandestine airstrips in Haiti, she added.
UNODC said it has identified four trafficking routes using Haiti’s porous borders, two from Florida via cargo ships to Port-au-Prince and to the north and west coasts through the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas, and others via container ships, fishing vessels, barges or small aircrafts arriving at the northern city of Cap Haitien and by land crossings from the Dominican Republic.
UNODC said most seizures made by US authorities have been conducted in Miami.
It said even though control agencies doubled the number of searches in 2023, “authorities sometimes do not find illicit arms and ammunition, often hidden among tightly stacked packages of all shapes and sizes.”
To make “a significant dent in in the flow of arms in the country”, UNODC said it is training “control units” in ports and airports comprising police and customs officers and the Coast Guard to identify and inspect high-risk containers and cargo, and is working to facilitate their use of radar and other critical tools.
People who fled their homes due to violence are now living in a school hosted in a school in Port-au-Prince.
But, Bertrand said, security needs to be stabilized to improve Haiti’s ability to monitor and control all its borders, adding that “law enforcement officers are very busy trying to contain the crisis in the streets of Port-au-Prince.”
Regarding the forthcoming UN Security Council-mandated multinational security support mission, Bertrand said it will be essential to “support the very courageous work that is already been being done by the police”. —UNITED NATIONS (CMC)