The Unit­ed Na­tions says its Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil on Fri­day re­newed for one year the sanc­tions regime on Haiti, in­clud­ing a tar­get­ed as­sets freeze, trav­el ban and arms em­bar­go mea­sures, aimed at curb­ing the il­lic­it flow of weapons to crim­i­nal gangs which have sown chaos across the French-speak­ing Caribbean na­tion. 

Unan­i­mous­ly adopt­ing, un­der Chap­ter VII of the UN Char­ter, res­o­lu­tion 2752 (2024), the UN said the 15-mem­ber Coun­cil “de­ter­mined that the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti con­tin­ues to con­sti­tute a threat to in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion.” 

The UN said the res­o­lu­tion “em­pha­sizes the con­tin­u­a­tion of sanc­tions mea­sures orig­i­nal­ly im­posed in ear­li­er res­o­lu­tions to pre­vent the sup­ply of weapons and mil­i­tary equip­ment to gangs op­er­at­ing in Haiti.” 

The UN not­ed that Haiti is “mired in a com­plex hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis, dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by ram­pant vi­o­lence by armed crim­i­nal gangs, against a back­drop of se­vere dis­as­ters and eco­nom­ic cri­sis.” 

Hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple have been dis­placed from their homes, in­clud­ing around 350,000 chil­dren, the UN said. 

It said there are al­so “deeply wor­ry­ing re­ports” of sex­u­al vi­o­lence, kid­nap­ping and ex­e­cu­tions.

The res­o­lu­tion pro­vides for ex­emp­tions for sup­plies sup­port­ing UN or UN-au­tho­rized mis­sions and Hait­ian se­cu­ri­ty forces.

Sup­plies of non-lethal mil­i­tary equip­ment in­tend­ed sole­ly for hu­man­i­tar­i­an or pro­tec­tive use and re­lat­ed tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance or train­ing, to fur­ther peace and sta­bil­i­ty in Haiti, are al­so ex­empt. 

It not­ed that the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in 2023 au­tho­rized the de­ploy­ment of a Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port (MSS) mis­sion to Haiti to help its na­tion­al po­lice quell surg­ing gang vi­o­lence. The MSS mis­sion was fur­ther re-au­tho­rized last month for a fur­ther one year.

Led by Kenya, as of Sep­tem­ber, the UN said the MSS has about 410 po­lice of­fi­cers on the ground and is ex­pect­ed to grow to around 2,500.

But, “for now, the coun­try re­mains mired in cri­sis,” the UN said.

It said the res­o­lu­tion al­so high­lights the need to pre­vent il­lic­it arms traf­fick­ing and en­cour­ages co­or­di­na­tion among the UN, re­gion­al or­ga­ni­za­tions and the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment to im­prove bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and man­age weapons stock­piles. 

The UN said the res­o­lu­tion specif­i­cal­ly calls on the Hait­ian Gov­ern­ment to en­hance its na­tion­al po­lice force’s ca­pac­i­ty to con­trol weapons and am­mu­ni­tion, in­clud­ing strength­en­ing bor­der and cus­toms con­trol.

Through the res­o­lu­tion, the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil al­so re­newed the man­date of the sanc­tions com­mit­tee and ex­tend­ed the work of the Pan­el of Ex­perts for 13 months. 

The UN said the com­mit­tee is tasked with up­dat­ing the list of in­di­vid­u­als and en­ti­ties sub­ject to sanc­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those vi­o­lat­ing the arms em­bar­go. 

In ad­di­tion, the res­o­lu­tion es­tab­lish­es bench­marks for lift­ing sanc­tions, in­clud­ing re­duc­tions in armed vi­o­lence, im­proved rule of law and de­creased arms traf­fick­ing. 

The UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al is re­quest­ed to as­sess progress by Oc­to­ber 2025.

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS, Oct.  19, CMC

CMC/nk/kb.2024