A new UN report released on Thursday 28 November 2023 details the shocking increase in violence and abuse by criminal groups against the population, including murders, kidnappings and sexual violence, and finds that criminal gangs are forming alliances and are expanding into rural areas previously considered safe.

The report, published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), calls for the urgent deployment of the multinational security support mission authorized by the UN Security Council in October, in accordance with international human rights norms and standards. Stressing that the longer the deployment of a specialized international force takes, the more robust the response must be...

In this report, Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, reveals that at least 3,960 people have been killed, 1,432 injured and 2,951 kidnapped in gang-related violence this year alone [i.e. 1 Haitian killed every 2 hours].

In Artibonite, gangs fight for control of entire towns and resort to sexual violence against women or minor children. At least 1,694 people were killed, injured or kidnapped between January 2022 and October 2023.

These gangs loot farmers' property (crops and livestock) and destroy irrigation canals. More than 22,000 people abandoned their villages and their crops, reducing the cultivated area and consequently worsening food insecurity in Haiti.

For its part, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports nearly 195,000 people displaced in the Metropolitan area between January and August 2023.

In addition, the number of people executed by citizen self-defense groups has reached extremely worrying proportions. While in 2022, a total of 63 lynchings had been recorded across Haïri, over the first 10 months of 2023, this number has already reached 418...

Download the full report (PDF in English): https://www.haitilibre.com/docs/Haiti-report-criminal-violence-artibonite-2023-en.pdf

HL/ SL/ HaitiLibre