UN Secretary-General visits Haiti as gang violence soars

U.N. Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res vis­it­ed Haiti on Tues­day, where surg­ing gang vi­o­lence has left more than 1 in 10 peo­ple home­less.

New sta­tis­tics re­leased by the U.N. re­veal that 2,300 peo­ple have been killed across Haiti so far this year, with an­oth­er 100 kid­napped, while 1.5 mil­lion have been dis­placed. Among those ab­duct­ed is James Bo­yard, cab­i­net di­rec­tor of the De­fense Min­istry, who was kid­napped last week in one of the few rel­a­tive­ly safe ar­eas of the cap­i­tal.

Guter­res’ one-day vis­it to Port-au-Prince comes af­ter more than 30 peo­ple were killed, in­jured or miss­ing last week­end in Cité Soleil, a sea­side slum, ac­cord­ing to Co­op­er­a­tive for Peace and De­vel­op­ment, a lo­cal hu­man rights or­ga­ni­za­tion.

His con­voy sped past a neigh­bour­hood once ful­ly con­trolled by gangs that left in their wake dec­i­mat­ed car deal­er­ships, aban­doned homes and dozens of con­crete build­ings pock­marked with bul­let holes. A colour­ful bus known as a tap-tap rum­bled past, its wind­shield pep­pered with bul­let holes.

Graf­fi­ti scrawled on a crum­bling con­crete wall read: “Down with Viv Ansanm, long live the po­lice.” Viv Ansanm is a pow­er­ful gang fed­er­a­tion that the U.S. gov­ern­ment des­ig­nat­ed a for­eign ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion. It is es­ti­mat­ed to con­trol 70% of Port-au-Prince.

Guter­res trav­elled past dozens of Haitians who fled the clash­es and now live in makeshift homes un­der large pieces of can­vas strung up with frayed rope.

They are among the more than 300,000 peo­ple dis­placed by gang vi­o­lence across Port-au-Prince — a record. Among them are more than 18,000 peo­ple who fled the Cité Soleil slum in May, ac­cord­ing to the U.N. In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion.

“Haiti’s dis­place­ment cri­sis is en­ter­ing an even more alarm­ing phase,” Gre­goire Good­stein, IOM chief of mis­sion in Haiti, said in a re­cent state­ment.

Guter­res’ first stop was the head­quar­ters of the new gang-sup­pres­sion force, which the U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil ap­proved in Sep­tem­ber. It re­places a U.N.-backed mis­sion led by Kenyan po­lice that aimed to help Haiti’s Na­tion­al Po­lice fight gangs but re­mained un­der­fund­ed and un­der­staffed.

So far, Ja­maica, Chad, El Sal­vador and Guatemala have de­ployed troops that num­ber less than 1,000 to form part of the grow­ing force, which is due to start op­er­a­tions in the com­ing weeks.

They are ex­pect­ed to work with Haiti’s Na­tion­al Po­lice and its grow­ing Armed Forces, with hun­dreds of Hait­ian men and a cou­ple of women lin­ing up on a dusty road hop­ing to in­ter­view to join.

Guter­res then met be­hind closed doors with Prime Min­is­ter Al­ix Di­di­er-Fils-Aimé, who is un­der pres­sure to hold elec­tions in the coun­try of near­ly 12 mil­lion peo­ple that hasn’t had a pres­i­dent since Jovenel Moïse was killed at his pri­vate res­i­dence in Ju­ly 2021.

“We had a frank con­ver­sa­tion about what’s hap­pen­ing in Haiti, the vi­sion the gov­ern­ment has for the fu­ture,” Fils-Aimé told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press af­ter the meet­ing.

He said se­cu­ri­ty is a pri­or­i­ty so the tran­si­tion­al gov­ern­ment can hold elec­tions and “get back to re­pub­li­can rule.” Fils-Aimé added that Guter­res can help with that ef­fort by en­sur­ing that the coun­tries back­ing the gang-sup­pres­sion force “live up to their en­gage­ment.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres greets soldiers from Chad at a base in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, June 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Danica Coto)

Danica Coto

‘We don’t have a life here’

Guter­res al­so stopped by a makeshift shel­ter in a for­mer school where dozens of the peo­ple liv­ing there crowd­ed around him.

Forced to flee their homes af­ter gangs shot up their com­mu­ni­ty and set fire to it, some had been liv­ing there for up to four years.

“Soli­no is not ready,” 31-year-old Clif­ford Lala said of go­ing back to his com­mu­ni­ty. It was one of the last hold­outs in Port-au-Prince un­til gangs over­ran it.

Guter­res ducked in­to a hot class­room and met pri­vate­ly with a group of six women who de­cried the lack of pri­va­cy at the shel­ter, even to show­er or use the bath­room, and said they wor­ried about their young chil­dren.

“It’s skin-to-skin and mouth-to-mouth,” said one woman.

The shel­ter hous­es more than 1,200 peo­ple who sleep side by side, and on­ly one meal a day is guar­an­teed.

“We’re go­ing to do our best,” Guter­res told the women.

Out­side, a man be­gan to slap the build­ing’s met­al sid­ing and bel­lowed, “We want to go back home!” His voice grew loud­er and an­gri­er as se­cu­ri­ty walked in­to the room and whisked Guter­res away.

Wendy Ce­jour, 26, told the AP that he and his fam­i­ly have been liv­ing at the school for a year and a half.

“As long as we’re alive, we have hope, but … things are dif­fi­cult,” he said. “We ask ... to re­turn to our neigh­bour­hood to live bet­ter, be­cause we don’t have a life here.”

A day be­fore Guter­res’s vis­it, Hu­man Rights Watch pub­lished a let­ter urg­ing him to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tion and tar­get the root caus­es of vi­o­lence and hu­man rights abus­es. The or­ga­ni­za­tion al­so called for a “full-fledged U.N. mis­sion” in Haiti.

“Even when ful­ly staffed and re­sourced, se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures alone will not suf­fice to ad­dress this sit­u­a­tion,” the rights group wrote.

“Any mean­ing­ful strat­e­gy should in­clude ef­fec­tive pro­tec­tion for vic­tims of vi­o­lence, cred­i­ble path­ways for dis­en­gage­ment from crim­i­nal groups, ac­count­abil­i­ty for abus­es, and a co­or­di­nat­ed hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­sponse to help re­store ac­cess to ba­sic goods and ser­vices.” — PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)

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Sto­ry by DÁNI­CA CO­TO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press