Haiti: On patrol with UN forces inside a gang war zone

Two-year-old Shayna is on an IV drip at one of the few functioning hospitals in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Her mother, Wanda, desperately hopes this will end the severe malnutrition the young girl suffers from.

Shaina is one of the 760,000 children who are on the brink of famine in Haiti.

For weeks, Wanda was too afraid to leave her home to seek treatment for her daughter, terrified of gang warfare in her neighborhood.

Now that she has reached the pediatric ward, she hopes it won’t be too late for Shaina.

“I want to take proper care of my child, I don’t want to lose him,” she says through tears.

Haiti has been gripped by a wave of gang violence since the assassination of then-President Juvenile Moise in 2021, and an estimated 85 percent of the capital is now under gang control.

Even inside the hospital, Haitians are not immune to the fighting, which the United Nations says has killed 5,000 people this year alone and pushed the country to the brink of collapse.

The medical director of the hospital says that yesterday in the emergency ward, there was a clash between the police and the gang members between the frightened patients.

Victims of violence are everywhere. A ward is full of young men with bullet wounds.

Perry is one of them.

He says he was on his way home from work when he got caught up in a street fight, in which a bullet went through his collarbone.

“I think if the government had been more stable and implemented better youth programs, they wouldn’t have joined the gangs,” he says of the youths who make up a large part of the terror gangs in the capital.

To address the escalating violence, the UN Security Council authorized the establishment of a Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in October 2023.

Funded primarily by the United States, the Kenyan-led force deployed to Haiti six months ago was tasked with restoring law and order.

On patrol in downtown Port-au-Prince, the brutality of gang violence is palpable.

Kenyan officers drive through streets in heavily armored personnel carriers (APCs) through once-bustling areas of the capital that are now deserted. Shops and houses have been vandalized.

Burnt-out cars and debris lie in piles high on the roads – barricades erected by gangs to block access.

The caravan makes its way through the wreckage when it suddenly catches fire.

Bullets rattle the APC’s armor as Kenyan police return fire with their assault rifles through gun ports in the vehicle’s walls.

After about an hour of firing, the convoy moves forward.

But it’s not long before there are signs of more horrific gang violence. A human body is burning in the middle of the street.

One of the Kenyan police in our APC says he suspects it was a gang member who was cornered and killed by a rival group, his body burned to send an ominous warning.

The Kenyan officers on our patrol are by now used to seeing this kind of brutality on the streets of Port-au-Prince, but they also tell us they are tired.

Four hundred officers arrived in June – but they are too many. In July, the Haitian government estimated that there were 12,000 members of the armed group in the country.

Additional personnel were promised from Kenya. A force of 2,500 was envisaged when the UN authorized the mission, but that support, which was due to arrive in November, has not yet materialised.

Despite the situation, there is hope in the leadership of the force. Commander Godfrey Otong is under pressure from the Kenyan government to make the mission a success.

The mission commander says MSS has “tremendous support” in Haiti.

“The population is demanding that our team be expanded and pacified elsewhere,” he says.

The uphill struggle they face is evident in a former Haitian police station, which was occupied by a gang but has now been retaken by Kenyan forces.

It is still completely surrounded by gangs and, as the officers head for the roof, they come under sniper fire.

Kenyan officers fire back, urging everyone to stay down.

Kenyan officials say some of their long-delayed additional forces will arrive by the end of this year, bringing their total to 1,000.

And cooperation is urgently needed. There are areas in Port-au-Prince that are so tightly controlled by gangs that they are virtually impenetrable to the police.

In one such area, Wharf Jérémie, nearly 200 civilians were killed by a single gang over a weekend in early December.

In total, around 100 gangs operate in the Port-au-Prince region, with boys as young as nine joining their ranks.

And the problem only seems to grow. According to UNICEF, the number of children recruited into gangs has increased by 70% in one year.

One of the gang leaders they come across is T. Lapley, whose real name is Renal Destina.

As head of the Gran Ravine gang, he commands more than 1,000 men from his fortified headquarters above Port-au-Prince.

Gangs like his exacerbate an already dire situation in Haiti, and are known to slaughter, rape and terrorize civilians.

Gran Ravine is notorious for kidnappings for ransom, an act that landed T. Lapelley on the FBI’s wanted list.

T. Lapley tells us that he and his gang members “love our country so much” – but when pressed on the gang’s rap and murder, such as its violence against civilians, he claims that his Men “do things they ought not to do. [to members of rival gangs] Because the same is done to us.”

The reason for the children’s involvement in Grand Ravine is simple, he says: “The government doesn’t create any jobs, it’s a country with no economic activity. We’re living on garbage, it’s basically a failure.” State.”

He failed to recognize the stifling effect he had on Haiti’s economy. Often afraid to leave their homes for work, even ordinary citizens are regularly extorted.

With violence from gangs like Gran Ravine forcing 700,000 residents to flee their homes, the capital’s schools have become camps for internally displaced people.

Negociant is among those who have had to take shelter.

She and her five children are squeezed into the small part of the school balcony they now call home.

“Just weeks ago I was living in my own house,” she says. “But gangs took over my neighborhood.”

She explains that she left for an area of ​​the city called Solino, until she too was captured by gangs and escaped with hundreds of others.

“Today, once again, I am running for my life and my children,” she says.