A UN report released Tuesday details a wave of violence that has swept Haiti\u2019s rural reaches, describing gang raids on villages and alarming levels of food insecurity caused by the targeting of farmers in the country\u2019s historic breadbasket. <\/p>\n
The report, from the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Integrated Office in Haiti, offers a stark analysis of the spread of gangs in the poor Caribbean nation, which has seen deepening unrest since the 2021 assassination of then-President Jovenel Moise. <\/p>\n
Past attention has largely focused on Port-au-Prince, the capital, where warring gangs have forced thousands of people from their homes and into makeshift encampments across the sprawling city. In Bas-Artibonite, the focus of the UN report and the center of Haitian rice production located some 100 kilometers from the capital, there are now more than 20 \u201cextremely violent\u201d criminal groups fighting for turf, it says. Some 1,690 people were killed, injured, or kidnapped from January 2022 through last month, the report also says. <\/p>\n
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker T\u00fcrk noted in a statement the \u201cterrible violence against the population expanding \u2013 within and outside Port-au-Prince \u2013 and the inability of the police to stop them.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation in Haiti is cataclysmic,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are continuing to receive reports of killings, sexual violence, displacement and other violence \u2013 including in hospitals.\u201d <\/p>\n
The report calls for the urgent deployment of a multinational support mission greenlit by the UN Security Council last month and the reinforcement of Haitian police. The force is expected to be led by Kenya, which has pledged 1,000 police to the mission, though the deployment has been tied up by legal challenges. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe much-needed Multinational Security Support mission needs to be deployed to Haiti as soon as possible,\u201d T\u00fcrk said in the statement. <\/p>\n
According to the report, violence increased drastically in the Artibonite region towards the end of last year, with gangs and vigilante groups that sprung up to oppose them vying for control. There were at least 110 attacks carried out by gangs on rival villages from January 2022 through last month, with \u201cextreme brutality\u201d on display, including beheadings, rapes, and kidnappings, the report says. <\/p>\n
Brazen daylight attacks on some of the area\u2019s busiest roadways are also common, the report found, with more than 85 people killed by gang members who erected barricades or ambushed public transport vehicles from the side of the road. <\/p>\n
Farmers and their properties have also become \u201cprime targets\u201d for gangs, the report says, with gang members occupying fields and forcing farmers to pay a tax to gain access to them. \u201cThose who dare to protest are beaten and killed, or their crops and livestock stolen,\u201d the report says. <\/p>\n
In April, the World Food Program noted a reduction of almost 5,000 hectares of crops across three communes of Lower Artibonite \u201cdue to the forced displacement of the agricultural workforce.\u201d <\/p>\n
Over 45% of the population living in Artibonite is considered acutely food insecure, the WFP found in September. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs the current dynamics in the Lower Artibonite region demonstrate, particularly around the issue of agricultural property, a police and judicial response will not be enough to protect the human rights of the population,\u201d the report says. \u201cThe longer it takes to deploy a specialized international force, the more robust the response will have to be.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
A UN report released Tuesday details a wave of violence that has swept Haiti\u2019s rural reaches, describing gang raids on villages and alarming levels of food insecurity caused by the targeting of farmers in the country\u2019s historic breadbasket. The report, from the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Integrated Office in Haiti, offers a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}