Haiti has seen almost 13 people killed on average every day this year, according to data from a United Nations report released this Friday (27), which called for stricter controls on arms trafficking, among other measures, to As a gang war leads to a worsening humanitarian crisis.
At least 3,451 people have been killed since January, according to a report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published days before a mandate for the UN security force supporting Haitian police expired.
“No more lives should be lost to this senseless crime,” Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement.
Haiti initially requested the mission in 2022 and it was approved a year ago, but only a fraction of the troops pledged by a handful of nations have been deployed and funding remains scarce. Haiti has asked the UN to consider turning it into a formal peacekeeping mission to ensure stable funding and capacity.
Turk said it is clear the mission needs “adequate and sufficient equipment and personnel to combat criminal gangs effectively and sustainably, and prevent them from spreading further and wreaking havoc on people’s lives.”
The mission’s first deployment in June led the gangs to recruit large numbers of children into their ranks, the report states. Additionally, close to 100 children have been killed so far this year — some in gang attacks and others in police operations, according to the report.
The violence spread beyond the capital, fueled by arms trafficking, mainly from the United States, but also from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, which persisted despite the international arms embargo.
The report said poorly monitored airspaces, coastlines and porous borders were allowing gangs to obtain high-caliber weapons, drones, boats and “a seemingly endless supply of bullets”.
The number of people internally displaced due to violence has almost doubled in the past six months to more than 700,000, while around 1.6 million people are estimated to face emergency food insecurity, the worst level before the famine.
This content was originally published in UN calls for stricter control of weapons sent to Haiti on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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