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Haitians taking steps to protect themselves amid insecurity, kidnappings,
created U.N. fund.
On the security situation, Nichols said, “I would say that it is a variable . ... We’ve seen eruptions of gang violence and then periods of calm.”
Nichols also said that he saw a report from the U.S. Embassy indicating 53 kidnappings last year of American citizens.
“Kidnappings are actually down slightly up to this point, but that’s cold comfort to the people of Haiti,” he said.
His assessment, however, runs counter to the reality on the ground for many Haitians and a recent United Nations report. The report, presented to the U.N. Security Council last month, said gangs are tightening their grip on large swaths of the country. It noted that kidnappings and homicides have risen 36% and 17%, respectively, compared with the last five months of 2021.
On Friday, the sound of automatic gunshots could be heard around 6:15 p.m. in the Cité Soleil slum. After deadly clashes in the capital earlier in the day, the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti issued a tweet calling for “armed individuals to immediately stop their acts of violence, to allow free passage to the medical emergency services.” The U.N. also called on the interim government to ensure the protection of civilians.
Also in a meeting in Port-au-Prince, the mission’s head Helen La Lime noted that there were already 680 documented kidnappings since the beginning of the year, according to the Haitian police. The actual number, she noted, is higher because not all abductions are reported.
To make his point on the security situation today compared with previous months, Nichols cited a “gang attack” against Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry during Haitian independence day celebrations in January, which some have questioned, and last year’s fuel terminal blockade by a group of Haitian gangs that created lifethreatening shortages as examples of flare-ups.
He also mentioned the May extradition of
Germine Joly, a powerful gang leader who, along with his 400 Mawozo gang, is accused of murder, arms trafficking and the kidnapping of 16 Americans and a Canadian last October. “That sent a very strong signal to the gang, that there are consequences for their actions,” Nichols said.
Joly’s extradition and indictment in U.S. federal court has not weakened gang activity in Haiti. Armed gang members have seized control of the main courthouse, which still wasn’t back under police control Friday, and forced the U.S. Embassy to restrict the movement of staff in the Tabarre area because of increased violence and kidnappings. The embassy is located 1.5 miles away from 400 Mawozo’s stronghold in the Croixdes-Bouquets suburb and less than a mile from the base of one of its allies in the Torcel community.
Also, two days after the U.S. requested Joly’s extradition in late April from a Haitian prison where he ran the gang, 400 Mawozo waged a violent turf war against another gang, Chen Mechan, that, according to a local human rights group, led to one of the worst massacres in recent memory. At least 191 men, women and children were shot to death or chopped up with machetes during the nearly two-week insurrection that forced the Haiti National Police to mount a military-style operation to take back a key artery.
The increase in gang activities in the area has forced the displacement of thousands of Haitians in the last two months and the shuttering of essential services like the courthouse in Croix-des-Bouquet. It has also affected the visa processing at the U.S. Embassy, whose consular sections had already been slowed down by the violence and the COVID-19 pandemic and has lost local staff because of the increased insecurity.
Nichols did acknowledge that there’s a consensus in the international community that the situation in Haiti