UN warns Haiti's capital nearing collapse as gangs tighten grip
Haiti has been without a president since the assassination of Jovenel Moise in July 2021, leaving a power vacuum that has allowed armed gangs to expand their influence unchecked. In the absence of a functioning central government and with weakened state institutions, the armed groups have grown in strength, seizing territory and increasingly operating as the de facto authorities across the country, particularly in the capital.
'Organized criminal groups have gained practically total control of the capital – approximately 90% of Port-au-Prince is under their grip,' Ghada Fathi Waly, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
She added that the gangs 'are continuing to establish their presence along strategic roads and border regions,' expanding attacks not only into surrounding areas but also into previously peaceful territories.
'Southern Haiti, which until recently was insulated from the violence, has seen a sharp increase in gang-related incidents,' Waly said. 'And in the east, criminal groups are exploiting land routes, including key crossings like Belladere and Malpasse, where attacks against police and customs officials have been reported.'
She said the Haitian state's ability to govern is rapidly eroding as gangs tighten their grip, triggering a cascade of consequences. Criminal groups are filling the void left by the absence or breakdown of public services, setting up their own 'parallel governance structures.' Their control over key trade routes has crippled legal commerce, driving up the cost of essential goods such as cooking fuel and rice.
Earlier this week, the UN's International Organization for Migration reported that the ongoing crisis has displaced a record 1.3 million people across the Caribbean state. The IOM noted that the number of makeshift shelters has skyrocketed by more than 70%. According to UN statistics, at least 5,600 people were killed in gang-related incidents in 2024 alone.
According to AP, the Kenyan-led, UN-supported mission in Haiti, which arrived in 2024 to help curb gang violence, has remained understaffed and underfunded, with only around 40% of the planned 2,500 personnel currently deployed. The news agency also noted that in February, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed providing drones, fuel, transport, and other non-lethal assistance to bolster the mission, but the plan has stalled in the Security Council.
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Russia Today
9 hours ago
- Russia Today
UN warns Haiti's capital nearing collapse as gangs tighten grip
Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, is on the brink of total collapse, with heavily armed gangs now controlling most of the city, a senior UN official has warned. The official stressed that violence continues to escalate across the Caribbean nation, while the international response remains slow and fragmented. Haiti has been without a president since the assassination of Jovenel Moise in July 2021, leaving a power vacuum that has allowed armed gangs to expand their influence unchecked. In the absence of a functioning central government and with weakened state institutions, the armed groups have grown in strength, seizing territory and increasingly operating as the de facto authorities across the country, particularly in the capital. 'Organized criminal groups have gained practically total control of the capital – approximately 90% of Port-au-Prince is under their grip,' Ghada Fathi Waly, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday. She added that the gangs 'are continuing to establish their presence along strategic roads and border regions,' expanding attacks not only into surrounding areas but also into previously peaceful territories. 'Southern Haiti, which until recently was insulated from the violence, has seen a sharp increase in gang-related incidents,' Waly said. 'And in the east, criminal groups are exploiting land routes, including key crossings like Belladere and Malpasse, where attacks against police and customs officials have been reported.' She said the Haitian state's ability to govern is rapidly eroding as gangs tighten their grip, triggering a cascade of consequences. Criminal groups are filling the void left by the absence or breakdown of public services, setting up their own 'parallel governance structures.' Their control over key trade routes has crippled legal commerce, driving up the cost of essential goods such as cooking fuel and rice. Earlier this week, the UN's International Organization for Migration reported that the ongoing crisis has displaced a record 1.3 million people across the Caribbean state. The IOM noted that the number of makeshift shelters has skyrocketed by more than 70%. According to UN statistics, at least 5,600 people were killed in gang-related incidents in 2024 alone. According to AP, the Kenyan-led, UN-supported mission in Haiti, which arrived in 2024 to help curb gang violence, has remained understaffed and underfunded, with only around 40% of the planned 2,500 personnel currently deployed. The news agency also noted that in February, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed providing drones, fuel, transport, and other non-lethal assistance to bolster the mission, but the plan has stalled in the Security Council.
Russia Today
26-06-2025
- Russia Today
Is Berlin planning a strike on Moscow? Merz wrote the justification
Forget the fog of war. Even in war, and sometimes especially in war, some things are exceedingly clear. Regarding the so-called 'Hamas-Israel War', for instance, it is obvious that in reality it is not a war at all but a genocide, namely the Gaza Genocide, carried out by Israel against the Palestinians whose unbroken resistance will be the stuff of legends, and of history too. Likewise, in the case of Israel's current assault on Iran – really, of course, a combined US-Israeli attack from the get-go – there is no room for doubt that it is criminal and a 'blatant act of aggression,' as multiple experts in international law agree. That's because in essence, Israel is not acting with a UN mandate – which it would not have received – or in self-defense. The legal basis for this compelling assessment is not complex and there is no room for good-faith debate: Israel's attack violates Article 2 (4) of the foundational UN Charter, which is recognized universally as jus cogens, that is, a binding norm: no pick and choose. The few generally accepted, narrowly defined potential exceptions to this article's comprehensive prohibition on the use of force, such as an erroneous incursion, certain operations at sea, or a rescue of nationals, clearly do not apply. The Israeli onslaught also does not have the blessing of the UN Security Council, and it cannot possibly count as lawful self-defense under Article 51. So far, so simple. If anyone tries to make this look complicated by flagrantly misapplying and abusing the notion of a 'preemptive strike', you are dealing with Israeli or Israel-Lobby disinformation and propaganda. That too is anything but surprising. Yet what is more puzzling than the above is the response of the governments, and often the mainstream media of the West, to this clearly criminal Israeli attack. After years of invoking international law to go after Russia, it turns out that the same leaders and talking heads will tie themselves into 5-D pretzels to let Israel get away with whatever Israel feels like doing on any given day. This is not really news either, of course: Western 'elites', with Washington always in the lead, have behaved no better when serving as accomplices in Israel's Gaza Genocide. But there is something peculiar and noteworthy about how exactly some important Western politicians and their media and 'think tank' experts spin the attack on Iran. Take, for instance, Germany. Its chancellor Friedrich Merz has gone out of his way to loudly endorse the assault on Iran. He has even exposed himself to ridicule and some – if far too little – criticism by employing revoltingly indecent language. Calling Israel's actions 'dirty work' (it sounds even worse in the original German: 'Drecksarbeit') that must be done and for which we all should be grateful, Merz has revealed his double racism: As a German and a historian, I can only say that a German leader praising Jews for doing 'our' dirty work is, to put it very mildly, extremely boorish. Defining the criminal killing of Iranians as that 'dirty work' adds a very nasty 'colonial' flavor reminiscent of say, Kaiser Wilhelm II gloating over massacring Chinese during the so-called Boxer Rebellion. While Merz has been clumsy enough to couch his obnoxious ideas in equally obnoxious language, he has by no means been alone. All too many prestigious German publications, such as the staid Frankfurter Zeitung or the also important Merkur newspaper, have hurried to either simply agree with Merz or at least to excuse and relativize his vile statement. In addition, rather overworked all-purpose 'experts', such as the reliably conformist and rarara-russophobic Christian Mölling, have used their perma-perk in Germany's streamlined talk shows to cynically diminish international law and help dress up Israel's newest crime as so necessary that it trumps all law anyhow. Mölling was self-unaware enough to openly argue that some countries (read: Israel) can't afford the 'luxury' of accepting 'normative limits' and that international law, anyhow, might be 'protecting the wrong ones' (read: Iran). It's breathtakingly brazen and intellectually primitive, and also historically speaking, very German in the worst sense: If we or our friends (read: Israel) feel constrained by international law, then that's a problem not for us or our friends but for international law. And now, let's take a step back and think for a moment like a German who was not a conformist intellectual mediocrity: Enlightenment giant Immanuel Kant. For those with ears to hear and brains to process, Kant has taught us that reason and ethics demand that the justifications for our actions ought to be generalizable in good conscience. In short, when we act, we should be able to show that we are acting according to a fair and reasonable rule. Let's generalize into such a rule, then, what German leader Friedrich Merz has just said and what all too many German mainstream representatives agree with: A country (here: Israel) that feels sufficiently afraid (as judged by that country) of another country (here: Iran) has a right (that trumps international law) to attack that other country without provocation and even during ongoing negotiations. Interesting. Consider that German elites have been fanning war hysteria relentlessly. Not a day seems to go by without some German general, spy, or politician warning their fellow Germans that Russia is at least likely, really almost certain, to attack within the next five years or so. Evidence: zero. Indeed? So, if we are all supposed to be so afraid of Russia in Germany, does that now mean that according to Merzian logic we may as well one day launch a preemptive strike on Moscow? After all, we could then say we felt threatened and our military and the intelligence services were telling us that the Russians were coming. And moreover, we'd probably claim that we, the Germans, were proudly doing the 'Drecksarbeit' for all of NATO (minus, most likely, the US). And isn't doing the 'Drecksarbeit' now officially a good thing in Germany, again? Absurd, you say? Yes, absolutely. Exactly as absurd as Israel's pretexts for attacking Iran. And yet those have been officially endorsed by a German chancellor, including self-revealing dirty language. Let's hope that Moscow does not take seriously what Merz says. Because if Moscow did take it seriously, then by Merzian logic, it should feel very threatened indeed by Berlin – and again by Merzian logic, who knows where that might lead.
Russia Today
25-06-2025
- Russia Today
Western states lied about Iran's nuclear program – Russia's UN envoy
The US and Israel have spread disinformation about Iran's nuclear program as a pretext for attack, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia has said. Speaking at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, the diplomat condemned the strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as illegal under international law and said they had 'created a real threat' of radioactive contamination. Nebenzia noted that the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which carries out inspections in Iran, serve as proof of 'the absence of proliferation risks.' 'We want to emphasize that nowhere in the IAEA reports is there any mention of Iran converting its nuclear stockpiles for undeclared or military purposes,' Nebenzia said. The IAEA has found no evidence indicating the development of nuclear weapons by Iran. Therefore, all claims by Western delegations to the contrary are falsehoods aimed at audiences either unfamiliar with the reports or lacking competence on the matter. Nebenzia described the attack on Iran as 'yet another attempt to legitimize the use of force outside the framework of the UN Charter.'IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told Sky News last week that there was no evidence of 'any systematic effort' by Iran to manufacture nuclear weapons. He added, however, that the agency had 'elements of concern' about Iran's enrichment of uranium to 60%. During a press conference in New York on Tuesday, Israeli envoy Danny Danon reiterated his government's position that Israeli strikes, which began on June 13, were aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran, which denies having a military nuclear program, has condemned the attack as an act of aggression and announced plans to restrict its cooperation with the IAEA. The US-brokered ceasefire between Iran and Israel took effect on Tuesday and has so far been upheld.
