As Haiti faces further political turmoil, the UN signals more troops on the way

By Sarah Morland

Jan 22 (Reuters) – A U.N.-backed security force deployed to Haiti to help local police fight off armed gangs that have taken over much of the country should get more troops in April and reach full strength by summer, the U.N.’s special envoy for Haiti said on Thursday.

The pledge of more troops comes at a time of growing political uncertainty in the Caribbean nation, with the current transitional government’s mandate set to end on February 7 without an official succession plan.

U.N. envoy Carlos Ruiz said the force should reach its full strength – envisioned at 5,500 troops – by the summer, or autumn at latest. He did not say where the troops would come from.

Around 1,000 mostly Kenyan police are currently in Haiti as part of the force, a deployment that has been marked by delays and severe lack of funding. Since the first deployment in June 2024, gangs have expanded to much of central and rural Haiti.

By comparison, there are an estimated 12,000 Haitian police and a similar number of gang members. The criminal groups are well armed, largely with guns smuggled in from the United States.

Haiti has been in deep crisis over recent years. The gangs have killed thousands of Haitians and taken control of most of the capital Port-au-Prince, expanded to the agricultural heartlands, and carried out multiple massacres, mass rapes, ransom kidnappings and arson.

In April 2024, a transitional presidential council was set up to help oversee a move towards fresh elections.

But their term has been marked by political infighting and corruption accusations, while worsening insecurity has repeatedly pushed back the likelihood of holding the country’s first election in a decade.

A majority of members of the transitional presidential council, the CPT – effectively Haiti’s top executive – have sought to oust Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime days before the council’s mandate ends, Haiti newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported on Thursday, citing a CPT member.

The Miami Herald later reported, citing unnamed sources, that the council president had opposed the plan and that another measure was being planned to remove him.

None of Haiti’s CPT members have publicly commented on the reported attempt to oust the prime minister.

Should it happen, this would be the CPT’s second ouster of a prime minister since they were appointed.

“The country cannot spare more internal fighting,” Ruiz said. “The current authorities should still make use of the couple weeks they have to do whatever they can to benefit the country.”

If a plan is not agreed, Ruiz said, “we know the constitution provides for the prime minister to continue if that’s the case, and we need an authority and a government that is stable enough.”

WARNINGS ABROAD

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau warned on Wednesday that such a move by non-elected CPT members so close to the end of their tenure would face consequences.

“The U.S. would consider anyone supporting such a disruptive step favoring the gangs to be acting contrary to the interests of the United States, the region, and the Haitian people and will act accordingly,” Landau said on X.

The Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs hardened Washington’s position in a post on Thursday, accusing politicians of conspiring with the gangs.

“It is the responsibility of corrupt Haitian politicians who use gangs and other armed groups to create chaos in the streets and then insist on a role in government to turn down the chaos they themselves have created,” it said on X.

“The members of the TPC (Transitional Presidential Council) who have followed this path are not Haitian patriots. They are criminals like the gangs they conspire with.”

Canada’s embassy in Haiti also said it would “take measures against any actor who compromises Haiti’s peace, security and stability,” urging council members to leave office once their mandate ends.

Haiti’s armed gangs have a history of close ties with figures in power but have in recent years become more economically independent as they forged alliances and cemented control over new territories.

Some 1.4 million people have been internally displaced by the conflict.

(Reporting by Sarah Morland and Brendan O’Boyle in Mexico City and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Editing by Bill Berkrot and Rosalba O’Brien)