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Haiti’s National Police still lack the “logistical and technical
capacity” to fight gangs, which he said are encroaching on new
territories as arms and ammunition flow into Haiti despite an
international embargo, said William O’Neill, who visited Haiti
this week.
“Humanitarian consequences are dramatic,” he said, and warned of
galloping inflation, lack of basic goods and ”internally
displaced people further increasing the vulnerability of the
population, particularly children and women."
From April to end of June, at least 1,379 people were reported
killed or injured in Haiti, and another 428 kidnapped, according
to the United Nations.
Meanwhile, at least 700,000 people have been left homeless in
recent years as gang violence persists in the capital of
Port-au-Prince and beyond — more than half of them children,
according to O’Neill.
He said he spoke with Haiti’s police chief, Rameau Normil, who
said they only have 5,000 officers for a country of more than 11
million people.
“It is impossible to provide security,” O’Neill said Normil has
told him.
O’Neill noted that Haiti’s population “lack everything” and
added that the authorities must be held accountable “to fight
corruption and bad governance, which continues to plunge the
country into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”
He cautioned that the current mission, led by 400-strong Kenyan
police officers who arrived in Haiti in late June, has deployed
less than a quarter of its pledged contingent.
“The equipment it has received is inadequate, and its resources
are insufficient,” O'Neill said.
Washington is mulling a U.N. peacekeeping operation in Haiti as
one way to secure funding and staffing for the Kenya-led mission
but the U.N. has pushed for more funding for the current
mission.
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