More than 5,600 people were killed in Haiti last year as a Kenyan-led UN-backed mission seeks to contain rampant gang violence, officials said Tuesday.
The number of killings has increased by more than 20 percent compared to the whole of 2023, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In addition, more than 2,200 people were reported injured and nearly 1,500 abducted.
“These numbers alone cannot summarize the absolute atrocities being committed in Haiti, but they show the continuing violence to which people are subjected,” Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.
The victims included two journalists and a police officer who were killed when gunmen opened fire on a crowd of people gathered on Christmas Eve to mark the reopening of Haiti’s largest public hospital, which gangs had earlier forced to close.
Overall, gang violence has displaced more than 700,000 Haitians in recent years, many crammed into makeshift and unsanitary shelters after gunmen destroyed their homes.
“I saw members of my family killed, and there was nothing I could do to save them,” recalls Gary Joseph, 55, who now lives in an abandoned government office with hundreds of others who fled their neighborhoods. “Everyone was running for their lives the night we had to leave.”
Last year’s victims also include more than 200 people killed in early December in a gang-controlled slum, many of them elderly Haitians, after a gang leader sought revenge for the death of his son, which he suspected was caused by witchcraft. , according to the United Nations. . This was one of the largest massacres reported in the capital, Port-au-Prince, in modern history.
At least 110 people were killed in Haiti’s Cité Soleil slum when a gang leader targeted elderly people on suspicion of making his child sick through witchcraft, the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights said.
Others killed last year included 315 suspected gang members or people associated with them who were summarily executed, and more than 280 people killed by police in alleged summary executions, the United Nations said.
Turk is calling for more logistical and financial support for the UN-backed mission, which began in early June.
The mission is led by about 400 police officers from Kenya, and they were joined a few days ago by about 150 military police officers from Central America, the majority of whom are from Guatemala. Several other countries have sent or pledged a small number of personnel, but the total number remains far short of the 2,500 officers expected to participate in the mission.
Commercial flights have been suspended
In another blow to Haiti’s stability, Sunrise Airways announced on Monday that it would temporarily suspend its flights to and from Port-au-Prince, 85 percent of which are controlled by gangs. She said that the decision was taken due to circumstances beyond her control, adding that the safety of passengers and crew members was a priority.
This leaves the country’s main international airport without any commercial flights for the third time this year.
“There is nowhere you can go,” Joseph said, noting that the gangs also control all the main roads in and out of Port-au-Prince, and shoot indiscriminately at public transportation. “No one is safe in this country, especially in Port-au-Prince… Everyone is just counting their days.”
In November, Port-au-Prince airport was closed after gangs opened fire and hit three planes. Including a Spirit Airlines plane It was mid-flight that a flight attendant was injured.
While the airport has since reopened, the US Federal Aviation Administration in December extended the ban on US flights to Haiti’s capital until March 12 for security reasons. The incident also prompted Canada to update its travel advisory warning against travel to Haiti due to the threat of gang violence, and Air Transat. hanging All flights To and from Port-au-Prince until the end of April.
Ronnie Jean Bernard, a 30-year-old former taxi driver who now lives in a crowded shelter, said gang violence forced him to rely on charity.
“I live on bread and sugar most of the time,” he said, noting that government officials stopped distributing free meals at his shelter about four months ago.
“Every day feels like darkness. I can’t see where life is taking me with this government that makes promises that things will get better. I hear that every day.”
As violence continues to escalate, Turk called on all countries to halt deportations to Haiti.
“The severe insecurity and resulting human rights crisis in the country simply do not allow for the safe, dignified and sustainable return of Haitians. However, deportations continue,” he added.
Under US President Joe Biden’s administration, about 27,800 Haitians have been deported, according to Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data.
Meanwhile, the neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, deported more than a quarter of a million people to Haiti last year as part of an ongoing crackdown on migrants.
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