--- title: "Haiti's Unnoticed Collapse: From Gang Violence to Open Civil War" description: "In August 2016, Time magazine ran a famous cover on what was then Latin America’s worst crisis. Titled simply ‘Venezuela is Dying’, the publication took the world inside the utter economic collapse one nation was experiencing beneath an incompetent dictator. Fast forward eight years, and another Latin American nation is now dying. Unlike Venezuela, Haiti is not being killed by an overbearing, tyrannical government, but by the lack of any central authority whatsoever. The nation has descended into an apocalyptic free-for-all in which almost every single institution holding the state together has shattered, leaving only a moral abyss.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n- Between July and September, gangs in Haiti killed 1,223 people and injured 522, representing a 30 percent increase in violence over the previous quarter.\n- Armed groups have driven over 700,000 Haitians from their homes, severely disrupting agricultural supply chains and restricting access to critical medical infrastructure.\n- The World Food Program classifies Haiti as a major global hunger hotspot, with over half the population suffering from acute hunger and millions facing emergency food insecurity.\n- The UN-authorized Multinational Security Support Mission deployed only 416 of its planned 2,500 personnel, hampered by major funding shortfalls and inadequate equipment.\n- Gang coalitions like Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif have expanded their territorial control beyond the capital, launching coordinated, military-style massacres against civilian populations.\n- Haitian leaders have requested a formal UN peacekeeping mission to secure reliable funding and manpower, though a UN Security Council veto by Russia or China remains likely.\n\n## The Escalation from Gang Violence to Civil War\n\nThe scale of the violence in Haiti has multiplied to the point that many observers no longer think it makes sense to refer to the crisis as a simple gang problem. Instead, analysts and international outlets alike prefer to frame the situation in far more severe terms, with declarations that the nation is effectively fighting a civil war. If that assessment sounds a tad hyperbolic, the sheer statistical scale of the carnage paints a harrowing picture. According to the United Nations, 1,223 people were killed and 522 injured by the gangs between July and September alone, representing a 30 percent increase on the previous quarter. Overall, some 5,000 individuals had been murdered in Haiti this year by the beginning of October. For comparison, the United States state of Georgia has a population fairly similar to that of Haiti. Across the whole of 2023, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations recorded only 728 homicides. That means that in just nine months, over six-and-a-half times as many people were killed in Haiti as they were in Georgia over the whole of last year. And these figures only account for the homicides. Haiti is also suffering a massive mass-displacement crisis, with the gangs driving over 700,000 people from their homes. Of that staggering total, over a fifth were forced into exile in just the last three months. Hundreds more have been kidnapped for ransom. Then there is the profound impact on general living conditions. Because the armed groups have systematically taken control of key roads, major urban centers like the capital of Port-au-Prince have been completely cut off from essential supplies. Currently, a mere 20 percent of health facilities in the capital city are able to function. In the wider nation, over half of all hospitals are completely out of commission. This systemic collapse is a massive issue when no one is able to get access to food or basic medicine.\n\n## Humanitarian Catastrophe and the Failing Intervention\n\nThe collapse of infrastructure has pushed the country to the absolute brink of starvation. The United Nations World Food Program recently released a list of five hunger hotspots around the globe, where civilians are at risk of starvation in the coming months. Three of these locations—Sudan, Mali, and Gaza—are active warzones. The fourth, South Sudan, is a hyper-fragile state facing an economic crisis and apocalyptic flooding. The fifth is Haiti. Right now, over half of all Haiti’s population is suffering from acute hunger. The World Food Program classifies a further two million citizens as facing emergency levels of food insecurity, with thousands thought to be on the brink of famine. In response to the downward spiral, a Kenyan-led international intervention was authorized to stabilize the country, yet it has accomplished very little. Speaking to the Miami Herald, Crisis Group analyst Diego Da Rin assessed that the mission has had a very limited impact. This is largely due to the fact that the deployment, although fully authorized by the United Nations, never truly got off the ground. Of the 2,500 personnel earmarked for the mission, only 416 have actually been deployed to Haiti. Even those who did arrive were unable to secure good equipment and adequate funding. Crisis Group reports that the armored vehicles supplied to the policing operation are too wide to fit down the narrow alleyways of Port-au-Prince. Kenya's government, meanwhile, has claimed that only $400 million of the promised $600 million in funding has materialized. Without that extra cash, Nairobi and its international partners steadfastly refuse to send more officers. This is not to say the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) has not had any temporary success. When the first batch of officers arrived from Kenya and Jamaica, violence in Haiti noticeably dropped, and former no-go areas in Port-au-Prince temporarily became accessible. The reason for this initial pause in violence was likely due to fear on the part of the gangs. Although their collective membership is thought to number anywhere between 5,500 and 12,000, the vast majority of them are extremely young. The United Nations estimates that child soldiers may make up around fifty percent of their ranks. The idea of going toe-to-toe with 2,500 well-armed, highly trained police officers was likely terrifying. However, as time crept on and the MSS remained at resolutely low staffing levels, that initial fear rapidly evaporated.\n\n## Expanding Territorial Control and Unprecedented Brutality\n\nThe gangs quickly realized the limitations of the foreign force. A Haitian police officer noted that the gangs had briefly paused their wave of attacks after the arrival of the foreign police force, but having seen exactly how few troops actually arrived, they resolutely resumed their offensive. It is incredibly difficult for barely 400 men to hold down violence in a city of 1.2 million people. The capital is largely under the control of armed groups, where attackers can effortlessly vanish into winding, unmapped alleyways and hide among the civilian population. Consequently, Haiti’s armed groups have become increasingly blatant in their actions. Recently, the Viv Ansanm gang coalition invaded the neighborhood of Solino in a highly coordinated assault. Attacking on motorbikes and wielding Kalashnikov rifles, the sheer scale of the assault resembled a major military offensive rather than traditional gang violence. Homes were burned with people still inside them, and up to 10,000 residents were forced to flee on foot. Despite the carnage unfolding in Port-au-Prince, the very seat of the government and the base of the MSS, the international forces failed to save the neighborhood. Outside the capital, security forces are even thinner on the ground, yielding tragically predictable results. In the last few months, attacks have aggressively started creeping into the regions surrounding Haiti’s main city. A gang coalition is essentially holding all three million people living on the southern Tiburon Peninsula hostage. The important agricultural region of Artibonite, meanwhile, has been hit with devastating massacres. In early October, the Gran Grif gang launched a brutal assault on Pont-Sonde, a small town that had refused to pay extortion demands. The Pont-Sonde invasion unfolded with cold, calculated brutality. Babies, elderly women, and entire families were among the nearly 100 individuals left dead in the massacre. While the death toll was extremely high even by Haitian standards, such extreme cruelty has become deeply woven into the fabric of Haiti’s civil war. A recent United Nations report highlighted the barbaric tactics now in common use, describing a captured plainclothes policeman who was mutilated, forced to eat parts of his own body, and then burned alive. Similarly, vigilante groups that have formed in response have adopted their enemies' tactics. Having lynched 122 suspected gang members over the last three months, these groups mutilated victims with machetes, stoned, decapitated, and buried them alive, sparing not even children.\n\n## Political Deadlock and the Geopolitical Implications\n\nAll too often, the international community dismisses the current situation as simply the historical norm for the struggling nation. However, while the country has certainly suffered from rampant instability for decades, the current violence exists on an entirely different level, surpassing all but the absolute worst active global warzones. This unprecedented collapse requires a far more drastic response. Leslie Voltaire, the leader of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, requested in late October that the United Nations upgrade the MSS into an official UN peacekeeping mission. This request is highly significant, as Voltaire is a member of a political party that has long derided foreign intervention in Haiti. There are compelling reasons to believe that an official UN peacekeeping mission could shift the momentum. A primary factor is financial: blue helmet deployments have their own dedicated budget drawn from obligatory UN member payments, meaning a peacekeeping force would not face the same severe financial constraints as the Kenyan-led MSS. Currently, the MSS is largely bankrolled by the United States, alongside additional voluntary contributions from France, Canada, and Spain. With shifting political winds in Washington following recent elections, long-term funding for policing operations is highly uncertain. Furthermore, a full UN deployment could draw upon a massive pool of specialists and potentially bring thousands of trained personnel into the country within months. Despite the obvious tactical advantages, a UN deployment may not be politically possible. The UN remains deeply unpopular in Haiti, largely because its last deployment accidentally imported cholera, triggering an outbreak that killed approximately 10,000 people. Even if ordinary Haitians might accept disgraced peacekeepers over sustained gang violence, the UN Security Council is unlikely to sign off on the mission, as both Russia and China have threatened to veto any such proposal. Ultimately, the root of Haiti’s current crisis is a profound political deadlock driven by rapacious elites who have long refused to hold elections or prioritize rebuilding the nation’s shattered institutions. The Transitional Presidential Council, intended to resolve these issues, has instead fallen into the exact same trap of infighting and alleged corruption. As the political class squabbles, the nation burns, and the instability threatens to spill outward. Sitting just 600 kilometers from Puerto Rico, Haiti is already seeing gangs turn to piracy to attack ships at sea. Until a willing international coalition steps up, the chaos will inevitably export itself across the waves, making the problem exponentially harder to solve when the world finally decides to act.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### How severe is the violence in Haiti, and how does it compare globally?\n\nBetween July and September alone, 1,223 people were killed and 522 injured by gangs — a 30 percent increase over the previous quarter — with roughly 5,000 murdered across nine months of the year. For context, that is more than six and a half times the number of homicides recorded in the entire US state of Georgia, which has a comparable population, over the whole of the previous year. The UN and outside analysts have stopped calling it a gang problem and instead describe it as a civil war.\n\n### Why has the Multinational Security Support Mission failed to stabilize Haiti?\n\nThe Kenyan-led MSS was authorized for 2,500 personnel but deployed only 416, leaving it drastically understaffed for a city of 1.2 million. Even the equipment that arrived was mismatched to the terrain: armored vehicles supplied to the mission are too wide to fit down Port-au-Prince's narrow alleyways. Kenya has also withheld additional officers, citing that only $400 million of the promised $600 million in funding has materialized.\n\n### What is driving the humanitarian catastrophe, and how bad is the food crisis?\n\nArmed groups have seized control of key roads, cutting off Port-au-Prince from essential supplies and leaving only 20 percent of the capital's health facilities functioning. Nationally, over half of all hospitals are out of commission. The World Food Program lists Haiti among its five global hunger hotspots alongside active warzones; over half the population suffers from acute hunger and two million people face emergency levels of food insecurity, with thousands on the brink of famine.\n\n### What tactics have the gangs been using, and how far has their control expanded?\n\nGang coalitions have moved well beyond Port-au-Prince. The Viv Ansanm coalition launched a military-style assault on the Solino neighborhood using motorbikes and Kalashnikov rifles, burning homes with residents still inside and displacing up to 10,000 people. Gran Grif massacred nearly 100 people in the town of Pont-Sonde for refusing to pay extortion. The United Nations has documented extreme brutality including mutilation and burning alive of captured police officers, while vigilante groups have responded with their own atrocities.\n\n### Why has the UN peacekeeping option not moved forward, and what are the obstacles?\n\nHaiti's Transitional Presidential Council has formally requested an upgrade from the MSS to an official UN peacekeeping mission, which would draw on obligatory UN member payments rather than the voluntary funding the MSS relies on. However, a UN deployment faces two major obstacles: the UN remains deeply unpopular in Haiti because its last mission imported cholera that killed around 10,000 people, and both Russia and China have threatened to veto any such proposal in the Security Council.\n\n## Related Coverage\n- [South Sudan is on Fire. Here's Why. (And More)](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/south-sudan-is-on-fire-heres-why-and-more)\n- [The Emergence of a New Nation: The Rise of the Southern Transitional Council in Yemen](https://warfronts-prod.fulcrum-labs.workers.dev/conflicts/the-emergence-of-a-new-nation-the-rise-of-the-southern-transitional-council-in-yemen)\n- [Russia’s Death Toll Tops 100,000 as Ukraine War’s Human Cost Deepens](https://warfronts-prod.fulcrum-labs.workers.dev/conflicts/russias-death-toll-tops-100k-ukraine-war-human-cost)\n- [Did Rich Foreigners Pay to Shoot Civilians in Bosnia?](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/did-rich-foreigners-pay-to-shoot-civilians-in-bosnia)\n- [Sudan's Forgotten War: Why the World Looks Away](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/sudans-forgotten-war)\n\n## Sources\n1. \n2. \n3. \n4. \n5. \n6. \n7. \n8. \n9. \n10. \n\n[1]: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article294185394.html\n[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/30/haiti-armed-gangs-port-au-prince\n[3]: https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/caribbean/haiti/weighing-case-new-peacekeeping-mission-haiti\n[4]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/30/haitis-gangs-inflict-extreme-brutality-as-casualties-rise-un-report\n[5]: https://apnews.com/article/haiti-police-gang-violence-un-mission-63fbb5f85019668f793e80069b8f0558\n[6]: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/world/americas/haiti-gang-violence-us-embassy-un-helicopter.html\n[7]: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article294774604.html\n[8]: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1156321\n[9]: https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/haiti-emergency\n[10]: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/10/21/in-haiti-gangs-defy-the-multinational-force_6729988_4.html\n\n" url: https://warfronts.pub/article/haiti-unnoticed-collapse-gang-violence-civil-war.md canonical: https://warfronts.pub/article/haiti-unnoticed-collapse-gang-violence-civil-war datePublished: 2026-03-04 dateModified: 2026-03-04 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://warfronts.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Warfronts image: "https://media.warfronts.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/A412uoC7zzg/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: c71e9bf9e1bb68eb26173048ef5efe5b4e620bf09e51d7ceb0a3572dff9319c3 tokens: 4335 summaryUrl: https://warfronts.pub/article/haiti-unnoticed-collapse-gang-violence-civil-war.md.summary.md --- In August 2016, Time magazine ran a famous cover on what was then Latin America’s worst crisis. Titled simply ‘Venezuela is Dying’, the publication took the world inside the utter economic collapse one nation was experiencing beneath an incompetent dictator. Fast forward eight years, and another Latin American nation is now dying. Unlike Venezuela, Haiti is not being killed by an overbearing, tyrannical government, but by the lack of any central authority whatsoever. The nation has descended into an apocalyptic free-for-all in which almost every single institution holding the state together has shattered, leaving only a moral abyss. ## Key Takeaways - Between July and September, gangs in Haiti killed 1,223 people and injured 522, representing a 30 percent increase in violence over the previous quarter. - Armed groups have driven over 700,000 Haitians from their homes, severely disrupting agricultural supply chains and restricting access to critical medical infrastructure. - The World Food Program classifies Haiti as a major global hunger hotspot, with over half the population suffering from acute hunger and millions facing emergency food insecurity. - The UN-authorized Multinational Security Support Mission deployed only 416 of its planned 2,500 personnel, hampered by major funding shortfalls and inadequate equipment. - Gang coalitions like Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif have expanded their territorial control beyond the capital, launching coordinated, military-style massacres against civilian populations. - Haitian leaders have requested a formal UN peacekeeping mission to secure reliable funding and manpower, though a UN Security Council veto by Russia or China remains likely. ## The Escalation from Gang Violence to Civil War The scale of the violence in Haiti has multiplied to the point that many observers no longer think it makes sense to refer to the crisis as a simple gang problem. Instead, analysts and international outlets alike prefer to frame the situation in far more severe terms, with declarations that the nation is effectively fighting a civil war. If that assessment sounds a tad hyperbolic, the sheer statistical scale of the carnage paints a harrowing picture. According to the United Nations, 1,223 people were killed and 522 injured by the gangs between July and September alone, representing a 30 percent increase on the previous quarter. Overall, some 5,000 individuals had been murdered in Haiti this year by the beginning of October. For comparison, the United States state of Georgia has a population fairly similar to that of Haiti. Across the whole of 2023, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations recorded only 728 homicides. That means that in just nine months, over six-and-a-half times as many people were killed in Haiti as they were in Georgia over the whole of last year. And these figures only account for the homicides. Haiti is also suffering a massive mass-displacement crisis, with the gangs driving over 700,000 people from their homes. Of that staggering total, over a fifth were forced into exile in just the last three months. Hundreds more have been kidnapped for ransom. Then there is the profound impact on general living conditions. Because the armed groups have systematically taken control of key roads, major urban centers like the capital of Port-au-Prince have been completely cut off from essential supplies. Currently, a mere 20 percent of health facilities in the capital city are able to function. In the wider nation, over half of all hospitals are completely out of commission. This systemic collapse is a massive issue when no one is able to get access to food or basic medicine. ## Humanitarian Catastrophe and the Failing Intervention The collapse of infrastructure has pushed the country to the absolute brink of starvation. The United Nations World Food Program recently released a list of five hunger hotspots around the globe, where civilians are at risk of starvation in the coming months. Three of these locations—Sudan, Mali, and Gaza—are active warzones. The fourth, South Sudan, is a hyper-fragile state facing an economic crisis and apocalyptic flooding. The fifth is Haiti. Right now, over half of all Haiti’s population is suffering from acute hunger. The World Food Program classifies a further two million citizens as facing emergency levels of food insecurity, with thousands thought to be on the brink of famine. In response to the downward spiral, a Kenyan-led international intervention was authorized to stabilize the country, yet it has accomplished very little. Speaking to the Miami Herald, Crisis Group analyst Diego Da Rin assessed that the mission has had a very limited impact. This is largely due to the fact that the deployment, although fully authorized by the United Nations, never truly got off the ground. Of the 2,500 personnel earmarked for the mission, only 416 have actually been deployed to Haiti. Even those who did arrive were unable to secure good equipment and adequate funding. Crisis Group reports that the armored vehicles supplied to the policing operation are too wide to fit down the narrow alleyways of Port-au-Prince. Kenya's government, meanwhile, has claimed that only $400 million of the promised $600 million in funding has materialized. Without that extra cash, Nairobi and its international partners steadfastly refuse to send more officers. This is not to say the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) has not had any temporary success. When the first batch of officers arrived from Kenya and Jamaica, violence in Haiti noticeably dropped, and former no-go areas in Port-au-Prince temporarily became accessible. The reason for this initial pause in violence was likely due to fear on the part of the gangs. Although their collective membership is thought to number anywhere between 5,500 and 12,000, the vast majority of them are extremely young. The United Nations estimates that child soldiers may make up around fifty percent of their ranks. The idea of going toe-to-toe with 2,500 well-armed, highly trained police officers was likely terrifying. However, as time crept on and the MSS remained at resolutely low staffing levels, that initial fear rapidly evaporated. ## Expanding Territorial Control and Unprecedented Brutality The gangs quickly realized the limitations of the foreign force. A Haitian police officer noted that the gangs had briefly paused their wave of attacks after the arrival of the foreign police force, but having seen exactly how few troops actually arrived, they resolutely resumed their offensive. It is incredibly difficult for barely 400 men to hold down violence in a city of 1.2 million people. The capital is largely under the control of armed groups, where attackers can effortlessly vanish into winding, unmapped alleyways and hide among the civilian population. Consequently, Haiti’s armed groups have become increasingly blatant in their actions. Recently, the Viv Ansanm gang coalition invaded the neighborhood of Solino in a highly coordinated assault. Attacking on motorbikes and wielding Kalashnikov rifles, the sheer scale of the assault resembled a major military offensive rather than traditional gang violence. Homes were burned with people still inside them, and up to 10,000 residents were forced to flee on foot. Despite the carnage unfolding in Port-au-Prince, the very seat of the government and the base of the MSS, the international forces failed to save the neighborhood. Outside the capital, security forces are even thinner on the ground, yielding tragically predictable results. In the last few months, attacks have aggressively started creeping into the regions surrounding Haiti’s main city. A gang coalition is essentially holding all three million people living on the southern Tiburon Peninsula hostage. The important agricultural region of Artibonite, meanwhile, has been hit with devastating massacres. In early October, the Gran Grif gang launched a brutal assault on Pont-Sonde, a small town that had refused to pay extortion demands. The Pont-Sonde invasion unfolded with cold, calculated brutality. Babies, elderly women, and entire families were among the nearly 100 individuals left dead in the massacre. While the death toll was extremely high even by Haitian standards, such extreme cruelty has become deeply woven into the fabric of Haiti’s civil war. A recent United Nations report highlighted the barbaric tactics now in common use, describing a captured plainclothes policeman who was mutilated, forced to eat parts of his own body, and then burned alive. Similarly, vigilante groups that have formed in response have adopted their enemies' tactics. Having lynched 122 suspected gang members over the last three months, these groups mutilated victims with machetes, stoned, decapitated, and buried them alive, sparing not even children. ## Political Deadlock and the Geopolitical Implications All too often, the international community dismisses the current situation as simply the historical norm for the struggling nation. However, while the country has certainly suffered from rampant instability for decades, the current violence exists on an entirely different level, surpassing all but the absolute worst active global warzones. This unprecedented collapse requires a far more drastic response. Leslie Voltaire, the leader of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, requested in late October that the United Nations upgrade the MSS into an official UN peacekeeping mission. This request is highly significant, as Voltaire is a member of a political party that has long derided foreign intervention in Haiti. There are compelling reasons to believe that an official UN peacekeeping mission could shift the momentum. A primary factor is financial: blue helmet deployments have their own dedicated budget drawn from obligatory UN member payments, meaning a peacekeeping force would not face the same severe financial constraints as the Kenyan-led MSS. Currently, the MSS is largely bankrolled by the United States, alongside additional voluntary contributions from France, Canada, and Spain. With shifting political winds in Washington following recent elections, long-term funding for policing operations is highly uncertain. Furthermore, a full UN deployment could draw upon a massive pool of specialists and potentially bring thousands of trained personnel into the country within months. Despite the obvious tactical advantages, a UN deployment may not be politically possible. The UN remains deeply unpopular in Haiti, largely because its last deployment accidentally imported cholera, triggering an outbreak that killed approximately 10,000 people. Even if ordinary Haitians might accept disgraced peacekeepers over sustained gang violence, the UN Security Council is unlikely to sign off on the mission, as both Russia and China have threatened to veto any such proposal. Ultimately, the root of Haiti’s current crisis is a profound political deadlock driven by rapacious elites who have long refused to hold elections or prioritize rebuilding the nation’s shattered institutions. The Transitional Presidential Council, intended to resolve these issues, has instead fallen into the exact same trap of infighting and alleged corruption. As the political class squabbles, the nation burns, and the instability threatens to spill outward. Sitting just 600 kilometers from Puerto Rico, Haiti is already seeing gangs turn to piracy to attack ships at sea. Until a willing international coalition steps up, the chaos will inevitably export itself across the waves, making the problem exponentially harder to solve when the world finally decides to act. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How severe is the violence in Haiti, and how does it compare globally? Between July and September alone, 1,223 people were killed and 522 injured by gangs — a 30 percent increase over the previous quarter — with roughly 5,000 murdered across nine months of the year. For context, that is more than six and a half times the number of homicides recorded in the entire US state of Georgia, which has a comparable population, over the whole of the previous year. The UN and outside analysts have stopped calling it a gang problem and instead describe it as a civil war. ### Why has the Multinational Security Support Mission failed to stabilize Haiti? The Kenyan-led MSS was authorized for 2,500 personnel but deployed only 416, leaving it drastically understaffed for a city of 1.2 million. Even the equipment that arrived was mismatched to the terrain: armored vehicles supplied to the mission are too wide to fit down Port-au-Prince's narrow alleyways. Kenya has also withheld additional officers, citing that only $400 million of the promised $600 million in funding has materialized. ### What is driving the humanitarian catastrophe, and how bad is the food crisis? Armed groups have seized control of key roads, cutting off Port-au-Prince from essential supplies and leaving only 20 percent of the capital's health facilities functioning. Nationally, over half of all hospitals are out of commission. The World Food Program lists Haiti among its five global hunger hotspots alongside active warzones; over half the population suffers from acute hunger and two million people face emergency levels of food insecurity, with thousands on the brink of famine. ### What tactics have the gangs been using, and how far has their control expanded? Gang coalitions have moved well beyond Port-au-Prince. The Viv Ansanm coalition launched a military-style assault on the Solino neighborhood using motorbikes and Kalashnikov rifles, burning homes with residents still inside and displacing up to 10,000 people. Gran Grif massacred nearly 100 people in the town of Pont-Sonde for refusing to pay extortion. The United Nations has documented extreme brutality including mutilation and burning alive of captured police officers, while vigilante groups have responded with their own atrocities. ### Why has the UN peacekeeping option not moved forward, and what are the obstacles? Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council has formally requested an upgrade from the MSS to an official UN peacekeeping mission, which would draw on obligatory UN member payments rather than the voluntary funding the MSS relies on. However, a UN deployment faces two major obstacles: the UN remains deeply unpopular in Haiti because its last mission imported cholera that killed around 10,000 people, and both Russia and China have threatened to veto any such proposal in the Security Council. ## Related Coverage - [South Sudan is on Fire. Here's Why. (And More)](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/south-sudan-is-on-fire-heres-why-and-more) - [The Emergence of a New Nation: The Rise of the Southern Transitional Council in Yemen](https://warfronts-prod.fulcrum-labs.workers.dev/conflicts/the-emergence-of-a-new-nation-the-rise-of-the-southern-transitional-council-in-yemen) - [Russia’s Death Toll Tops 100,000 as Ukraine War’s Human Cost Deepens](https://warfronts-prod.fulcrum-labs.workers.dev/conflicts/russias-death-toll-tops-100k-ukraine-war-human-cost) - [Did Rich Foreigners Pay to Shoot Civilians in Bosnia?](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/did-rich-foreigners-pay-to-shoot-civilians-in-bosnia) - [Sudan's Forgotten War: Why the World Looks Away](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/sudans-forgotten-war) ## Sources 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. [1]: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article294185394.html [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/30/haiti-armed-gangs-port-au-prince [3]: https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/caribbean/haiti/weighing-case-new-peacekeeping-mission-haiti [4]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/30/haitis-gangs-inflict-extreme-brutality-as-casualties-rise-un-report [5]: https://apnews.com/article/haiti-police-gang-violence-un-mission-63fbb5f85019668f793e80069b8f0558 [6]: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/world/americas/haiti-gang-violence-us-embassy-un-helicopter.html [7]: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article294774604.html [8]: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1156321 [9]: https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/haiti-emergency [10]: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/10/21/in-haiti-gangs-defy-the-multinational-force_6729988_4.html <!-- youtube:A412uoC7zzg -->