Killer gangs are inches from ruling all of Haiti

The collapse of Haiti's government in April last year was a challenge but also an opportunity. An interim government called the Transitional Presidential Council was installed. A UN-brokered, Kenyan-led security mission arrived soon after. But a year later things are worse than ever. 'We are approaching a point of no return,' María Isabel Salvador, the UN's top official in Haiti, told its Security Council at a meeting on April 21st.
Tasked with preparing for elections that in theory will be held in November, the council is now mired in allegations of corruption. The security force of around 1,000 people (less than half the number originally planned) has not been able to stem the chaos. Its funding runs out in September. The council is a 'transitional authority that controls nothing', says Claude Joseph, a former prime minister. 'It's an unsustainable catastrophe. We could lose Port-au-Prince at any time.'
Port-au-Prince, the capital, now sees daily gun battles in which police and civilian vigilantes face off against a gang coalition called Viv Ansanm ('Living Together'). It has seized control of much of the city. The international airport has been all but shut down; the only way in or out is by helicopter, or by a barge that skirts the coast to bypass gang territory to the south. On May 2nd the United States designated Viv Ansanm and a sister organisation as terrorist groups, opening the door to tougher criminal penalties for those who provide them with money and weapons.
The collapse of public life is accelerating. Most schools are shut. Cholera is spreading. The Marriott, one of the last functioning hotels, has closed its doors. Gangs have surrounded the offices of Digicel, Haiti's main cellular network, through which most people connect to the internet. 'If Digicel goes down, the country goes dark,' warns a security expert.
The gangs don't need it. Increasingly sophisticated, they use Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system to communicate, organising themselves to the extent that they have been able to keep control over access to Haiti's ports. They also extort lorry drivers and bus operators moving along many of the country's main roads.
The UN reports that in February and March more than 1,000 people were killed and 60,000 displaced, adding to the 1m, nearly 10% of the population, who have fled their homes in the past two years. Circulating videos show gang members playing football with severed heads, bragging: 'We got the dogs.'
Central Haiti, once relatively peaceful, is fragmenting into fiefs. Mirebalais, a city which lies between Port-au-Prince and the border with the Dominican Republic, is now controlled by gangs. 'The country has become a criminal enterprise. It's the wild, wild West,' says a foreign official.
Patience is running thin at the UN Security Council. The United States has already committed $600m to the security mission, but is unlikely to offer more. 'America cannot continue shouldering such a significant financial burden,' said Dorothy Shea, the US ambassador to the UN. Few other countries want to donate.
The Transitional Presidential Council is so desperate that it is exploring deals with private military contractors. It has been talking to Osprey Global Solutions, a firm based in North Carolina. The founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, visited Haiti in April to negotiate contracts to provide attack drones and training for an anti-gang task force. The council declined to comment.
The Haitian police are overwhelmed; an estimated 12,000 officers police a population that approaches 12m, barely half the UN-recommended ratio. Weak leadership, poor co-ordination with the Kenyan-led force, and calls for the ousting of the police chief point to deep institutional rot.
In Canapé-Vert, one of Port-au-Prince's last gang-free pockets, a former policeman known as 'Commander Samuel' leads a vigilante group called Du Sang 9 ('New Blood' in Creole). Gangs have thinned its numbers. It is all that stands between them and the prime minister's office.
Clarification (June 3rd 2025): Paragraph eight of this article has been amended to make clear that the council exploring deals is the Transitional Presidential Council.
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