UN Report Documents Over 1,000 Killings in Haiti Amid Escalating Gang Violence

The findings lay bare a wave of brutal territorial conflicts, sexual violence, and other atrocities, documenting how grave violations and abuses persisted throughout the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area as well as the Artibonite and South-East departments.

“The magnitude of the massacres recorded over this period, especially in Kenscoff and other localities once untouched by such violence, underscores the urgent need to reinforce both civilian protection mechanisms and the authority of the State in areas recently freed from gang control,” said Carlos Ruiz Massieu, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Haiti and head of the UN Integrated Office in the country, BINUH.

The UN Security Council has approved a Gang Suppression Force for the Caribbean nation, though it has yet to be fully deployed.

Retaliatory killings and lethal assaults

Between July and September, Haiti recorded a minimum of 1,167 people killed and 459 wounded. Gangs bore responsibility for more than 45 per cent of these incidents, while roughly five per cent were linked to self-defence groups targeting gang members and those accused of collaborating with them.

According to the report, more than half of all recorded killings and injuries took place during ground or aerial operations conducted by security forces against gangs, at times backed by a private military contractor deploying drones.

Armed factions retained control over neighbourhoods across the capital, carrying out targeted killings in revenge for security operations. They also killed individuals who resisted extortion, defied their rules, or reported efforts by gang leaders to disrupt the electoral process.

Gang members previously expelled from areas such as Bel Air and La Saline in security operations earlier in the year steadily re-established themselves in those zones and resumed their abuses.

The report also details violent clashes driven by struggles over territory.

Beheadings and church killings

In early August, gangs beheaded at least 19 people in the Cité Soleil neighbourhood, among them 12 elderly women. Two assaults in the town of Kenscoff during July and August claimed at least 105 lives, including 19 children. More than 36 of the victims were shot dead in the courtyard of a Protestant church.

Further attacks struck the communes of Saint-Michel-de-l’Attalaye in Artibonite and Marigot in South-East, regions that had largely been spared from gang infiltration until now.

Over 16 per cent of the victims had no connection to gangs. At least four people, two of them children, were also killed and 10 others wounded in assaults involving explosive drones.

In addition, 44 cases of extrajudicial executions and attempted extrajudicial executions by members of the Haitian National Police (HNP) were documented, up from 14 during the preceding quarter.

Kidnappings, rape and child recruitment

Meanwhile, no fewer than 137 people were abducted for ransom during the period under review, compared with 81 between April and June. Children made up 10 per cent of those taken.

BINUH further recorded 344 victims of sexual violence carried out by gang members. The victims ranged in age from eight to 75, and the majority of cases—77 per cent—involved gang rape.

Gangs also persisted in recruiting and exploiting children. In August, at least 32 boys aged 14 to 16 who had been forcibly conscripted by a gang were killed during clashes with security forces in the commune of Gressier.

The report urges Haiti’s authorities to bolster protection and support for those affected by the violence.

It further calls on the international community to sustain its commitment to the country and to accelerate the full deployment of the Gang Suppression Force in line with international human rights standards.

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