'Extreme brutality': UN, aid groups warn Haiti unrest soaring

Yahoo

26-02-2025

Haiti has seen a "wave of extreme brutality" in recent weeks, with numerous killings and thousands forced to flee their homes, a consortium of UN agencies, NGOs and donors is warning.
"Entire families have been brutally wiped out in their homes, while others, including children and babies, have been shot dead as they tried to escape," the group, organized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in a statement Monday.
Gangs control large portions of Haiti, including the majority of the capital, and violence has soared despite the arrival of hundreds of police personnel as part of a Kenya-led multinational security support mission (MSS).
"We are deeply alarmed and dismayed by the unacceptable and inhuman intensity of the violence raging in Haiti, a wave of extreme brutality which, since the end of January, has resulted in the loss of many lives," the group said.
It said 4,000 people had been forced to flee the Kenscoff area of the capital, along with 2,000 more from the Delmas, Port-au-Prince and Petion-ville municipalities.
The group called on "all parties involved in this violence to break this cycle of terror and put an end to this uncontrolled spiral."
Fresh attacks occurred late Monday nights, said residents of two neighborhoods in the capital.
"They set fire to our house with my father inside. It's cruel," a resident who managed to flee the area told AFP.
Another said the attack came early in the morning as vigilante security forces were resting. "The bandits attacked us by surprise," she said.
Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas, has long been mired in instability, but conditions severely worsened early last year when gangs launched coordinated attacks in the capital to force then-prime minister Ariel Henry to resign.
He handed power to an interim government, which along with the MSS has struggled to wrest back control from the gangs.
The UN-approved MSS has around 1,000 personnel from six nations, though mostly from Kenya, out of 2,500 initially expected. One Kenyan officer died after being shot on Sunday.
UN officials have repeatedly called for more support for the mission and a surge of resources to the nation, where an estimated one million people have been displaced by the violence.
Last week, the UN launched an appeal for over $900 million in aid for Haiti this year, a sharp increase from 2024, which was only 44-percent funded.
The UN recorded 5,600 deaths linked to gang violence last year, in a 20-percent increase compared to 2023, as well as 1,500 kidnappings, nearly 6,000 gender-based violence cases, 69 percent of which were instances of sexual assault.
On Monday, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime said authorities were "at war" with the gangs.
"We are relentlessly committed to enabling the police, the army and MSS to put gangs out of action," he promised in a speech to mark his 100 days in office.
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