More than 5,600 people were reported killed in Haiti last year as a Kenyan-led UN mission struggled to curb gang violence, officials said on Tuesday.
The number of murders has increased by more than 20 percent compared to the whole year of 2023, according to the UN Human Rights Office. In addition, more than 2,200 people were reported injured and nearly 1,500 were taken hostage, he said.
“These figures alone cannot capture the horrors of what is happening in Haiti, but they show the unrelenting violence people are facing,” said Volker Turk, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, in a statement.
Among the victims are two journalists and a policeman who died when gunmen opened fire on a crowd that had gathered on Christmas Eve for the re-opening of the largest hospital in Haiti, where gangs were forced to close it.
In all, gang violence has left more than 700,000 Haitians homeless in recent years, many crammed into unsanitary shelters after gunmen destroyed their homes.
“I saw family members being killed, and there was nothing I could do to save them,” recalled Garry Joseph, 55, who now lives in an abandoned government office along with hundreds of others who fled their homes. “Everybody was running for their lives the night we had to leave.”
Last year's victims also included more than 200 people killed in early December in gang-controlled slums, mostly elderly Haitians, after a gang leader sought revenge for the death of his son, which he blamed on witchcraft, according to the UN. . It was one of the largest massacres reported in Port-au-Prince, the capital, in recent history.
At least 110 people died in the Haitian slums of Cite Soleil when a gang leader targeted adults he suspected of causing his child's illness with witchcraft, the National Human Rights Defense Network said.
Among those killed last year were 315 suspected gang members or people associated with them who were killed and more than 280 people killed by police in suspected summary executions, the UN said.
Turk is seeking more financial support for the UN-backed mission that began in early June.
About 400 police officers from Kenya are leading the campaign and in recent days they have been joined by about 150 military police from Central America, most of them from Guatemala. Several other countries have sent a number of personnel or promised to do so, but the total number is still far below the 2,500 2,500 officials expected for the project.
Commercial flights have been suspended
In another destabilizing move in Haiti, Sunrise Airways announced Monday that it would temporarily suspend flights to and from Port-au-Prince, 85 percent of which are controlled by gangs. It says that this decision was taken based on circumstances that were beyond our control, and that the safety of passengers and workers is a priority.
That leaves the country's largest airport without commercial flights for the third time this year.
“There's nowhere to go,” Joseph said, noting that the gangs have regained control of all major roads into and out of Port-au-Prince and are opening fire on public vehicles. “No one is safe in this country, especially in Port-au-Prince…. Everyone is counting their days.”
In November, the airport in Port-au-Prince was closed after gunmen opened fire and crashed three planes, including a Spirit Airlines flight mid-flight, injuring a flight attendant.
While the airport has since reopened, the US Federal Aviation Administration in December extended the ban on US flights to the Haitian capital until March 12 without security. The incident also prompted Canada to revise travel advisories to warn against all travel to Haiti due to the threat of gang violence, and Air Transat suspended all flights to and from Port-au-Prince until the end of April.
Rony Jean-Bernard, 30, a former taxi driver who now lives in a densely populated area, said gang violence forced him to rely on food.
“I live on bread and sugar most of the time,” he said, noting that government officials stopped giving free food to people in his area about four months ago.
“Every day is like darkness. I don't see where life is taking me with this government that makes promises that things will be alright. I hear that every day.”
As violence continues to escalate, Turk has called on all nations to halt deportations to Haiti.
“The severe insecurity and human rights crisis in the country do not allow for the safe, dignified and sustainable return of Haitians. However, deportations continue,” he said.
Under the administration of US President Joe Biden, some 27,800 Haitians have been deported, according to Thomas Cartwright of Witnesses at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data.
Meanwhile, the neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, expelled more than a quarter of a million people from Haiti last year as part of an ongoing crackdown on immigration.
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