More than 5,600 people are believed to have been killed in Haiti last year as a Kenyan-led, U.N.-backed mission struggled to contain rampant gang violence, officials said Tuesday.
The number of murders increased by more than 20% compared to the whole of 2023, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In addition, more than 2,200 people were injured and nearly 1,500 kidnapped, according to the statement.
“These figures alone cannot account for the absolute horrors perpetrated in Haiti, but they do show the relentless violence to which people are subjected,” Volker Turk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said in a press release.
The victims included two journalists and a police officer killed when gunmen opened fire on a crowd gathered on Christmas Eve for the much-anticipated reopening of Haiti’s largest public hospital, which gangs had previously forced to close.
Overall, gang violence has left more than 700,000 Haitians homeless in recent years, many of them crowded into makeshift, unsanitary shelters after gunmen razed their homes.
“I saw my family members being murdered and there was nothing I could do to save them,” recalls Garry Joseph, 55, who now lives in an abandoned government office with hundreds of other people who fled their neighborhood. “Everyone 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 a gang-controlled slum, many of them elderly Haitians, after a gang leader tried to avenge the death of his son, whom he suspected of being caused by 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 were killed in Haiti’s Cité Soleil slum when a gang leader targeted elderly people he suspected of causing his child’s illness through witchcraft , according to the National Human Rights Defense Network.
Others killed last year included 315 suspected gang members or people associated with them who were lynched and more than 280 people killed by police in alleged summary executions, the UN said.
Turk is calling for more logistical and financial support for the U.N.-backed mission that began in early June.
About 400 police officers from Kenya are leading the mission and were joined a few days ago by some 150 military police officers from Central America, the majority from Guatemala. Several other countries have sent a handful of personnel or pledged to do so, but the total number remains well below the 2,500 officers expected for the mission.
Commercial flights suspended
In another blow to Haiti’s stability, Sunrise Airways announced Monday that it would temporarily suspend its flights to and from Port-au-Prince, 85 percent of which are controlled by gangs. He said the decision was based on circumstances beyond his control, adding that the safety of passengers and crew members was a priority.
This leaves the country’s main international airport without any commercial flights for the third time this year.
“There is nowhere to go,” Joseph said, pointing out that the gangs also control all major roads in and out of Port-au-Prince and randomly open fire on public transport. “No one is safe in this country, especially in Port-au-Prince… Everyone is counting their days.”
In November, the Port-au-Prince airport closed after gangs opened fire and hit three planes, including a Spirit Airlines plane it was 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, for security reasons. The incident also prompted Canada to update a travel advisory to warn against 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, a 30-year-old former motorcycle taxi driver now living in an overcrowded shelter, said gang violence had forced him to rely on handouts.
“I live on bread and sugar most of the time,” he said, noting that government authorities stopped distributing free meals at his shelter about four months ago.
“Every day is like darkness. I don’t see where life is taking me with this government in place promising that things will get better. I hear that every day.”
As violence continues to grow, Turk called on all nations to stop deportations to Haiti.
“The acute insecurity and resulting human rights crisis in the country simply do not allow for a safe, dignified and sustainable return of Haitians. And yet the evictions continue,” he said.
Under U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, some 27,800 Haitians have been deported, according to Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data.
Meanwhile, the neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, deported more than a quarter of a million people to Haiti last year as part of an ongoing crackdown on migrants.
