Gang War In 2023 the situation continued to escalate, with the last democratically elected officials leaving office, leaving Haiti without an elected government. Four police officers killed by the
Vitel'Homme gang in Petion-ville and seven police officers killed by the Savien gang on 25 January in Liancourt led protesting police to storm Henry's residence. The riots ended a few days later. Canada announced on 6 February that they would begin surveillance flights to Haiti in order to monitor the situation in the country. According to leaked American documents in late February, the
Wagner Group began to explore pathways and expressed interest in intervening in Haiti. A series of battles between gangs in early March led to the deaths of 208 people, and kidnappings jumped 72% from the first quarter of the previous year. Doctors, lawyers, and other wealthy members of society were kidnapped and held for ransom. Examples include Jean-Dickens and Abigail Toussaint, a Haitian American couple who were kidnapped on 18 March and later released; Robert Denis, the director of the TV station Canal Bleu kidnapped on 11 April; and Harold Marzouka, the Vice-Consul of
Saint Kitts and Nevis and CEO of Haiti Plastics, kidnapped on 15 April. Many victims were killed when ransom demands were not met, leading many to flee the country, further hampering efforts to pull the country out of the crisis. 13 gang members were burned alive by a mob as they were being detained by police. On 27 July, the United States ordered its non-essential personnel to leave the country as quickly as possible. This order was given the same day an American nurse and her child were kidnapped, with 80% of the capital reportedly controlled by gangs. On 30 July, Kenya agreed to lead a
multinational peace mission in the country. On 18 September, the feuding G-Pèp and G9 gangs reached an agreement to form a so-called Viv Ansanm ("Live together") coalition. Any hope this inspired was short-lived however, as by 22 September, the Taliban gang of Canaan run by Jeff Larose was leading an attack on the touristic town of
Saut-d'Eau at the request of 5 Seconds gang leader Johnson "Izo" Alexandre, resulting in many injuries and at least 12 deaths. The motive for the attack, which lasted several days and spread to
Mirebalais, was thought to be related to arms smuggling. The growing crisis led to discussions of a Kenyan-led police intervention into Haiti, which Kenya had previously offered but which Haiti was at first reluctant to accept. On 2 October 2023,
United Nations Security Council resolution 2699 was approved, authorizing the "multinational security support mission" to Haiti, which is the first time an
African Union country led a major peacekeeping operation outside of Africa. On 5 October 2023, Kenyan
foreign minister Alfred Mutua was replaced by
Musalia Mudavadi amid domestic controversy over the plans. In a 2023 UN report Robert Muggah estimated there could be as many as half a million weapons in Haiti. When interviewed in 2024, he said that "more than 80 percent" of those traced by the "
ATF between 2020 and 2022 were made [in] or imported from the U.S."
2024 A UN report issued on 15 January indicated that in 2023 there had been 2,490 kidnappings and 4,789 reported homicides. On 13 March an American blogger Addison Pierre Maalouf, ignoring the "do not travel" recommendations of the U.S. State Department, was kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang while seeking to interview Jimmy Chérizier. He blamed corrupt police officers for the ambush which led to 17 days of captivity and $50,000 in ransom he says was paid to secure his release. According to Maalouf's father, who paid the ransom, pressure brought by Chérizier on gang leader Lanmò Sanjou (literally "la mort sans jour") helped secure the blogger's release. A surge in gang violence caused significant casualties, with 1,554 deaths and 826 injuries in the first quarter of the year. Gangs used
sexual violence as a means of control and punishment, with reports of women being raped during gang invasions of neighborhoods, often after witnessing the murder of their partners. Gangs are also known to force women into exploitative relationships and use the rape of hostages to extort ransoms from families. They are also known for recruiting children.
Ousting of Ariel Henry Starting in January 2024, after his deportation following release from a US prison, former senator
Guy Philippe, led protests demanding the resignation of Ariel Henry. He was aided by the Brigade de sécurité des aires protégées, an armed militia gone rogue. offering to circumvent the High Court's earlier ruling. On 25 February 2024,
Michel Patrick Boisvert assumed interim leadership of the Haitian government while Prime Minister Henry traveled to Kenya to negotiate the deployment of Kenyan police forces to Haiti. On 29 February, a wave of violence broke out. Gunfire was directed at the main airport, and many businesses in the area and two police stations were seized, fueling speculation that an alliance between rival gangs was forming to overthrow the government. Chérizier released a video saying that the goal of the operation was to prevent Henry from returning to Haiti. Gangs stormed jails after diversionary attacks on police stations, resulting in thousands of
inmates being freed. As the security situation in Port-au-Prince deteriorated, on 3 March Boisvert issued a state of emergency. More than 160,000 people were displaced within Port-au-Prince, which was effectively under siege by the gang alliance. Looting at the main port put at risk 300 containers filled with foreign aid. On 5 March, with the Port-au-Prince airport shut down by gang attacks, Henry's chartered plane was also prevented from landing in Santo Domingo and was diverted to
San Juan, Puerto Rico. Over the next days US military airlifted out its embassy personnel, and the European Union evacuated all diplomatic staff from Haiti. After the 8 March attack on the
National Palace, schools and government offices remained closed in the capital amid continuing attacks on police stations, hospitals, and courthouses. On 11 March Henry announced that he would resign and that a transitional council (whose membership would be determined in Jamaica at an emergency CARICOM meeting) would select an interim prime minister.
Transitional Presidential Council On 13 March, the
Pitit Desalin party led by Jean-Charles Moïse withdrew from the transitional council to create its own council, slated to include Guy Philippe, who had called for amnesty for some in the gangs whose actions brought down the Henry government. One week later, after encouragement from "a big country", Moïse reversed course and decided to name Emmanuel Vertilaire, on advice from the National Network of Farmers. It was reported that Philippe had lost significant support in Haïti by early April. On 24 March, Dominique Dupuy, who had replaced the only other woman on the council (Marie Ghislaine Mompremier) four days earlier, The members of the Transitional Presidential Council (French
Conseil présidentiel de transition, CPT) were: In addition, there were two observers, Frinel Joseph and Régine Abraham. On 12 April the government published a decree in
Le Moniteur officially creating the transitional council and specifying its mandate. The decree omitted the names of the representatives of the seven parties, subject to government confirmation. The next day, the council rejected the governmental decree and called upon the members of the resigning government to publish the council's original agreement without modification. Differences introduced in the government decree included that individuals are ineligible for appointment to the Council if they have been sanctioned by the United Nations, if they are under criminal indictment or have been found guilty of a crime in any jurisdiction, and that members must support the introduction of the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti. On 16 April, the government published a second order modifying the decree to include the names which had initially been proposed by the transitional council. On 28 May, the Presidential Transitional Council held a meeting to choose the next prime minister.
Garry Conille, who was briefly prime minister during the Martelly administration and worked as former UN Special Envoy
Bill Clinton's chief of staff, was unanimously designated by the six councillors present.
Note Instability and roadblocks causing medical and food insecurity across the country On 15 March, police entered Delmas in an attempt to capture Chérizier. The next day, they attempted to secure the principal port in Port-au-Prince, which had been closed since 7 March due to the violence. On 17 March, a
UNICEF aid container carrying critical items for infants and mothers was looted in the port, while 60% of hospitals nationally were unable to operate due to medicine and fuel shortages. Looting and vandalism at St. Francis de Sales hospital in Port-au-Prince caused damages estimated at US$3 million. Up to 20% of medical staff had left Haiti by the beginning of the year. Even before violence escalated shutting down all but one of the capital's hospitals, Haiti had the worst conditions for childbirth in Latin America and the Caribbean, with only "war-torn countries like Sudan and Yemen" having higher mortality rates. Gangs raided a power station and four substations, stealing equipment and leaving parts of the capital Port-au-Prince without power. On 18 March, 14 bodies were found after a gang attack in Petion-ville, a wealthy neighborhood. Police came to rescue an administrative judge when his home was attacked. UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell compared the anarchy to the film
Mad Max. On 19 March,
Le Nouvelliste reported that outside of the capital, schools and universities remained open and that activity in cities such as Cap-Haïtien, Jacmel, and Jérémie was relatively normal. Throughout the country, prices were rising, with agricultural products spoiling in warehouses. Banks ran out of cash and experienced liquidity problems in several areas, while the health sector and public transportation were also disrupted. Public transportation union leaders painted a grim picture of kidnappings and brigandage on the roads, as armed gangs continued their nearly 3-year-long control of the national highway system, demanding tolls to allow traffic to pass. With the closure of the Port-au-Prince airport, all travellers within the country were forced to use the dangerous roads. On 22 March, a police union representative said that officers in the capital were unable to cash their paychecks at the state bank. On 27 March, it was announced that the U.S. would provide $10 million worth of surplus helmets, bulletproof vests, weapons, and ammunition to the Haitian National Police, though U.S. funding for the Multinational Security Support was stalled. Also 170 French nationals and 70 others had been evacuated that week by special forces aboard helicopters flown into
Fort-de-France for transport on the carrier
Tonnerre. While police were tied up with the 1 April gang attack on the
National Palace, fires were set in the administrative building of the nearby
Petit Séminaire Collège Saint-Martial. Four cars parked in the courtyard were completely burnt and others vandalised. Computers, refrigerators, mattresses, generators, water purifiers, and solar panels were stolen during the six-hour attack. Two days later, the
National Library was pillaged of furniture and the generator damaged. The previous week the École nationale supérieure had been set aflame, and the National School of Arts was looted along with 10 pharmacies and two hospitals. On 6 April, police were able to regain control of the
Magalie, a freighter at the Varreux terminal in Port-au-Prince whose crew had been kidnapped and whose cargo had been looted of 10,000 bags of rice by the 5 Seconds and Taliban gangs two days earlier. Neither the rice nor the crew members were recovered in the operation. The Taliban gang was also reported to have destroyed a police station in the
Canaan. Through 20 May 2024, civilian flights into Toussaint Louverture International Airport remained suspended, though authorities had nationalized space around the perimeter of the airport and torn down 350 buildings to create a security
buffer zone. On 12 November, a
Spirit Airlines flight attendant was injured by gunfire. The
U.S. FAA ordered all air traffic diverted to
Cibao International Airport in the Dominican Republic after at least three planes were targeted while landing at Toussaint Louverture.
Vigilante action The "bwa kale" movement, which had begun in 2023 when a group of armed men "lynched and set fire to around a dozen men believed to be gang members", continued apace in late March 2024. In one case, on 29 March 2024, two men suspected of buying arms for gangs were taken from police custody and hacked to pieces by a mob in a small town near
Mirebalais. Pierre Espérance, director of the National Human Rights Defense Network in Haiti, expressed concern about the risk of the transitional council giving power to people linked to gangs, drawing attention to vigilante action as a "clear expression of Haitians' revulsion for gangs", and to "rank-and-file police officers [who] are revolting against the chief, who they say is tied to gangs."
Sexual violence against children In 2024, Haiti experienced a tenfold increase in sexual violence against children, as reported by the United Nations. UNICEF spokesman James Elder said that armed groups have inflicted severe harm on children, turning their bodies into battlegrounds. Concurrently, escalating armed violence has led to the internal displacement of over half a million children, representing nearly one in eight children nationwide—a 48% rise since September 2023.
Multinational intervention The United States pledged $200 million to the international police force approved by the UN and an additional $100 million in humanitarian aid. Canada announced $123 million to support Haiti, including $80.5 million for the mission. As of March 2024, the U.N. indicated that $78 million had been formally pledged, of which $10.8 million had been deposited, by Canada and France. The US military began flying cargo planes into the Port-au-Prince airport on 23 April and by mid-May had transported over 500 tons of material, including equipment for the Haitian National Police, medical equipment, and food. On 26 June Kenya's first contingent of 400 elite police officers landed in Port-au-Prince's international airport after months of delay. In October the Kenyan officers had been joined by two dozen from Jamaica, but the numbers fell far short of the 2,500 pledged by various countries, including Chad, Benin, Bangladesh and Barbados. Kenyan President William Ruto and Prime Minister Conille met in Nairobi, and said Kenya would deploy 600 additional officers the next month. They called for more international funding, in addition to the $85 million in pledges to the U.N. for the mission, with $68 million received. The Kenyan commander in Haiti said the fight against the gangs "is winnable" although they still controlled up to 80% of the capital, and civilian vigilante groups continued to fight back. In early October the U.N. Security Council extended the mandate of the multinational force, though declined to transform it into a U.N. peacekeeping mission.
Pont-Sondé massacre The Gran Grif gang, initially armed by politician Prophane Victor and led by Luckson Elan, issued a warning that they would attack residents in Pont-Sondé who had allied themselves with a self-defense group, hindering the gang's toll collection on the road from Port-au-Prince to Cap-Haitien. Arriving in Pont-Sondé by canoe, the gang attack on 3 October killed at least 115 people, and over 6,300 people were displaced.
Violence towards the press According to the
Committee to Protect Journalists, some reporters have been targeted by protesters. On 11 October 2019, Néhémie Joseph, another radio journalist critical of the government, was found dead in
Mirebalais after receiving death threats. Freelance journalist Vladjimir Legagneur is presumed to have been killed in March 2018 while reporting on gang activity in
Grande Ravine. On 22 October 2024, SOS Journalists and the Association of Haitian Journalists released statements calling upon authorities to take measures to protect journalists threatened by Viv Ansamm. == Response ==