The United Nations released a new report warning that the gang violence in Haiti is spreading farther across the region and into rural areas.
The groups are beginning to invade the country's rural central region, suffocating a once peaceful area that served as Haiti's food basket. Kidnappings, killings, and rapes now plague it.
Haiti's Rising Gang Violence
The United Nations released a new report detailing how gang violence in Haiti is spreading to once peaceful rural areas.
Only a handful of powerful gangs operate in Lower Artibonite, a region found north of the Port-au-Prince capital. However, they have laid waste to several communities with sparse police presence and a lack of basic government instructions.
The UN report noted that a climate of fear currently reigns in Lower Artibonite where murders, sexual violence, theft, destruction of property, and other abuses are committed against the people on a nearly daily basis.
From January 2022 to October 2023, there have been more than 1,690 people who have been killed, and more than 1,118 who were kidnapped in the region. The UN said that gang violence has forced another 22,000 people to flee their homes, more than half of them kids, as per ABC News.
The global organization added that gangs in Haiti have also stolen crops and livestock, blocked irrigation systems, and attacked agricultural lands. They have forced impoverished farmers to pay for access.
The World Food Program said that roughly 12,000 acres of crops were lost by April of this year because farmers were forced to flee. This resulted in the number of people going hungry rising, with nearly half of Artibonite's population of roughly 1.7 million people being at risk of starving.
The UN also said that the situation in central Haiti requires a swift response as it expressed concern about the delay in deploying a Kenya-led foreign armed force. This was approved last month by the UN Security Council and seeks to help the Caribbean country bring gang violence under control.
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The Threat to Haiti's People
Previously, the world's attention was brought toward Haiti''s capital when warring gangs forced thousands of people to flee into makeshift encampments. The UN's latest report said that there are now more than 20 "extremely violent" criminal groups who are fighting for control, according to CNN.
In a statement, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said that the terrible violence against the people of Haiti was expanding. That law enforcement was unable to stop them. He added that the situation in the Caribbean nation is "cataclysmic," adding that they are continuously receiving reports of various crimes.
The UN report also found that the region's most powerful gangs are allied to members of the capital's powerful G-Pep alliance. It added that this indicates a strategy for G-Pep to extend its influence to other regions.
The report said that gangs initially focused their attacks on transport routes but have since ramped up assaults on residential neighborhoods. They have also been reported to abduct people en masse and carried out gang rapes of women and even young children, said The Guardian.
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