The gov­ern­ment of Haiti has an­nounced a one-month state of emer­gency, ef­fec­tive Sun­day 22 De­cem­ber 2024, un­til Jan­u­ary 21, 2025, in re­sponse to es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence and in­se­cu­ri­ty.

The de­ci­sion, ap­proved by the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters, aims to em­pow­er the Hait­ian Na­tion­al Po­lice to com­bat armed gangs, ad­dress the agri­cul­tur­al and food crises, and re­store pub­lic safe­ty.

A Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) al­so has been es­tab­lished to tack­le the on­go­ing se­cu­ri­ty cri­sis and sup­port a peace­ful po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tion, as out­lined in an April 2024 agree­ment.

The gov­ern­ment has pledged to take all nec­es­sary mea­sures to re­store se­cu­ri­ty, en­sure in­sti­tu­tion­al func­tion­al­i­ty, and ad­dress na­tion­al chal­lenges.

This fol­lows a se­ries of vi­o­lent in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing the torch­ing of Bernard Maevs Hos­pi­tal by gang mem­bers led by Jim­my Cherisi­er, alias “Bar­bacue”, and the death of sev­er­al gang mem­bers, in­clud­ing a top lieu­tenant, dur­ing po­lice op­er­a­tions. —PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (CMC)