{"id":12666,"date":"2024-03-29T01:36:12","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T01:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/29\/cataclysmic-situation-in-haiti-leaves-1500-dead-in-gang-violence\/"},"modified":"2024-03-29T01:36:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T01:36:12","slug":"cataclysmic-situation-in-haiti-leaves-1500-dead-in-gang-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/29\/cataclysmic-situation-in-haiti-leaves-1500-dead-in-gang-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Cataclysmic Situation\u2019 in Haiti Leaves 1,500 Dead in Gang Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/28\/multimedia\/28haiti-03-mzlj\/28haiti-03-mzlj-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\u2018Cataclysmic Situation\u2019 in Haiti Leaves 1,500 Dead in Gang Violence\" title=\"\u2018Cataclysmic Situation\u2019 in Haiti Leaves 1,500 Dead in Gang Violence\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Gang violence has killed more than 1,500 people in Haiti so far this year, the United Nations human rights office reported on Thursday, the result of what it described as a \u201ccataclysmic situation\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Corruption, impunity and poor governance, together with increasing levels of gang violence, have brought the Caribbean nation\u2019s state institutions \u201cclose to collapse,\u201d the agency said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The U.N. human rights office reported that gang violence had left 1,554 people dead and 826 injured this year, as of March 22, A new report released by the agency described a surge in sexual violence by gang members, including rapes of women, often after having witnessed the killing of their husbands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There is also widespread, deadly vigilantism, with community groups \u2014 some calling themselves \u201cself-defense brigades\u201d \u2014 attacking people suspected of petty crime or gang affiliation. Last year, 528 people were reported killed in that way, and 59 more so far this year, the U.N. said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Armed gangs have taken control of most of the capital, Port-au-Prince, destroying police stations and government offices, as well as looting banks and hospitals, and killing and kidnapping dozens of people. The violence spurred the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who became stranded outside the country in early March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">William O\u2019Neill, a U.N. human rights expert who has worked extensively in Haiti, told a news conference in New York on Thursday that the current situation was the worst violence he had seen in Haiti since the early 1990s military dictatorship, when rapes and execution were commonly used against opponents of the government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe numbers are all going very much in the wrong direction, very quickly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Haitians are trapped in \u201can open prison,\u201d cut off from the world by air, land and sea, Mr. O\u2019Neill said. Leaving their homes to go to the market \u201cis a life-threatening venture for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">U.N. officials are warning that the Haitian police may not be able to resist the onslaught of the gangs much longer. \u201cI don\u2019t know how much longer Haitians can wait,\u201d said Mr. O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The State Department announced this week it was sending $10 million in equipment, including weapons and ammunition, to Haitian security forces \u201cas they fight to protect people and critical infrastructure against organized and targeted gang attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The head of the U.N. human rights office in Haiti, Arnaud Royer, said in an interview that only 600 to 700 Haitian police officers were currently working in Port-au-Prince, with only 9,000 police active across the whole country, less than half the U.N.\u2019s recommended policing level. Against the gangs, the police are outnumbered and outgunned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s nearly over for the police. They are on the edge,\u201d said Mr. Royer. \u201cMorale is extremely low, and they cannot keep up with all alerts they have been receiving. There is nobody who is safe now in this city,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The police were up against gangs \u201cwho have demonstrated extensive sophisticated weapons capabilities,\u201d Lewis Galvin, a senior Americas analyst at Janes, the defense intelligence firm, said in an email, including various makes of assault rifles as well as sniper rifles equipped with hollow-point ammunition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">An international arms embargo has failed to block the supply of illegal weapons and ammunition getting into Haiti, the U.N. report said. \u201cIt is shocking that despite the horrific situation on the ground, arms keep still pouring in,\u201d Volker Turk, the U.N. human rights chief, said in a statement on Thursday. \u201cI appeal for a more effective implementation of the arms embargo,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a rare public appearance via a video statement on Thursday, Frantz Elbe, the head of the Haitian National Police force, tried to reassure the population, standing before fellow officers and wearing a protective vest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cOur society is going through a political crisis linked to a security crisis that the country has never experienced before,\u201d he said, vowing that the police would \u201ccontinue the fight so that you return to your neighborhoods and to your family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Amid the ongoing violence, the creation of a presidential transitional council has been delayed after more than two weeks of negotiations. The council will be tasked with appointing an acting prime minister to head a new government and hold new elections, while also paving the way for the deployment of a U.N.-backed international police mission. But the makeup of the body has been delayed after several names were withdrawn because of personal security fears and ethical issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While the violence in Port-au-Prince had subsided somewhat in recent days, local humanitarian agencies have reported a shortage of food and fuel after the capital\u2019s main port was shut down. Several countries, including the United States, Canada and France, have evacuated hundreds of stranded citizens on emergency flights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The World Food Program said this week that Haiti was now suffering its worst levels of food insecurity on record after the gangs took over farmland and blocked the roads in and out of the capital, extorting people on buses and trucks delivering goods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Andre Paultre<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gang violence has killed more than 1,500 people in Haiti so far this year, the United Nations human rights office reported on Thursday, the result of what it described as a \u201ccataclysmic situation\u201d in the country. Corruption, impunity and poor governance, together with increasing levels of gang violence, have brought the Caribbean nation\u2019s state institutions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/28\/multimedia\/28haiti-03-mzlj\/28haiti-03-mzlj-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18068,169,6268,1418,5872,10957,201],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12668,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666\/revisions\/12668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}