The ongoing gang violence killed or injured about 2,500 people in Haiti in the first three months of this year, which is 53% more than during the previous reporting period and represents a record high, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said on Monday.
"During the first quarter of the year, around 2,500 persons were killed or injured as a result of gang violence. This is a 53% increase as compared to the previous reporting period and makes the first quarter of 2024 the most violent since BINUH’s [UN mission in Haiti] Human Rights Section started recording statistics in January 2022," Salvador told the UN Security Council during a meeting on Haiti.
It is impossible to overstate the increase in gang activity across Port-au-Prince and beyond, as well as the deterioration of the human rights situation and the deepening of the humanitarian crisis, she stated.
On top of the dire situation, only 8.1% of the $674 million 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan for Haiti has been funded, Salvador added.
On February 29, gang violence erupted in the downtown area of Port-au-Prince while Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry was visiting Kenya to seek an agreement for the deployment of foreign forces in Haiti to fight organized crime
The gangs said their goal was to prevent Henry from returning to Haiti and they stormed the country's largest prison and freed an unconfirmed number of inmates. The Haitian government declared a state of emergency in the capital region.