By Sarah Morland
(Reuters) – Haiti has seen nearly 13 people killed on average each day this year, according to data from a United Nations report on Friday, which urged tighter controls on arms trafficking among other measures as a gang war drives a worsening humanitarian crisis.
At least 3,451 people have been killed since January, according to a report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights published days before a U.N. mandate for a security force to support Haitian police is set to expire.
“No more lives should be lost to this senseless criminality,” commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement.
Haiti initially requested the mission in 2022 and it was approved a year ago, but just a fraction of the troops promised by a handful of nations has deployed and funding remains scant. Haiti has asked the U.N. to consider turning it into a formal peacekeeping mission to secure stable funds and capacity.
Turk said it was clear the mission needs “adequate and sufficient equipment and personnel to counter the criminal gangs effectively and sustainably, and stop them spreading further and wreaking havoc on people’s lives.”
The mission’s first deployment in June prompted gangs to recruit large numbers of children into their ranks, the report said. In addition, close to 100 children have been killed so far this year – some in gang attacks and other in police operations, the report said.
Violence has spread beyond the capital, fueled by arms trafficking, primarily from the United States but also from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, which has persisted despite an international arms embargo.
The report said poorly monitored airspaces, coastlines and porous borders were allowing gangs to obtain high-caliber weapons, drones, boats and “a seemingly endless supply of bullets.”
The number of people internally displaced by the violence has almost doubled in the last six months to over 700,000, while some 1.6 million people are estimated to be facing emergency food insecurity, the worst level before famine.
(Reporting by Sarah Morland)