Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti - Part 3: "Wake Up! The Bandits Are Coming!"

Foreign. 2025. 2 Mine resistant ambush protected vehicles were traveling along the road in Savien, near Pont Sonde, a small town in the Artbonite region a couple of hours north of the capital, Port au Prince. The officers inside were part of the Kenyan led multinational security support mission, the mss, and they'd been sent to recover a Haitian National Police armored vehicle that. Was stuck in a ditch, a ditch. That was thought to have been dug by a gang.

The task seemed simple, but they quickly ran into trouble. One of their vehicles got stuck and the other suffered a mechanical problem. As the officers attempted to resolve the issue, members of the Grand Gryff Gang attacked. During the firefight, all three armored vehicles were set on fire and destroyed. The MSS and Haitian National Police withdrew, but they were missing one MSS officer.

His name was Benedict Cabiru, and there was confusion about what had happened to him because when the officers returned to the scene of the attack, there was no body, so they didn't know whether he was alive or not. But an unsettling video emerged online sometime later and it showed a body of a man, allegedly that of Kabiru. And you can hear the gang members boasting about killing the MSS officer. But confusion remained.

The Transitional Presidential Council in Haiti said that a Kenyan officer had been killed, but the Kenyan authorities only confirmed that he was missing as a contingent. As a commander, one of the first things is that you have to account all the officers who are in the operation. So as we speak right now, we are still establishing where the officer is. He is still missing in action, leaving. Kabiru's family back in Kenya with the crippling uncertainty surrounding his fate.

Agony, frustration and fear. These are some of the descriptions that the situation has uncomfortably been having a seat at the home of the family of Benedict Kabiru, the Kenyan policeman who remains missing after guns in Haiti took him away. The family says the government has deserted them, keeping them in the dark as they battle the agonizing uncertainty of their kin's fate.

Despite the reports in Haiti of his death and the videos circulating online, the Kenyan authorities have yet to confirm it. Other reports have said that there are negotiations underway with Vivonsom, who are believed to be holding the body, asking to release it. Back to the mss. Welcome to Deep Dive from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. I'm Jack Meaghan Vickers, and this is Living Together, the Gangs of Haiti Part 3. Wake up. The bandits are coming Foreign

so let me just give you a brief reminder. Back in part one, we talked about the aftermath of the assassination of President Moise in July 2021, then the earthquake that followed shortly after, and the increasing aggression from the armed gangs, Causing chaos on the streets by blocking fuel terminals and so on, with the express wish to oust the new leader of Haiti, Ariel henry. Now, when he came to power, Henry had promised new elections as soon as possible.

But those plans were consistently postponed and then quietly shelved after the dissolution of the provisional electoral council. The following year saw increased kidnappings as well as increased gang violence. It was during this time that the rivalry between the two gang coalitions, G9 and GPEP, was really in full swing. In the area of brooklyn. In citi soleil, an area controlled by GPEP, members of G9 invaded the neighborhood.

So many were killed in the violence that bodies were said to litter the streets. Once a person was killed, Their body was left to decompose on the side of the road. According to the UN, over 200 people were killed in just 10 days. In July 2022, 3,000 were forced to flee, and the gangs destroyed and burnt many homes.

And then, to compound the issue, in mid September, prime minister Ariel Henry announced that there would be a gradual increase in fuel prices in an attempt to save over $400 million a year in fuel subsidies, Money which could be redirected into social programs. Violent protests broke out after the government announced a rise in fuel prices. The prime minister is urging calm, but calls are growing for him to resign. Many businesses and homes have been damaged as the demonstrations continue.

Some embassies have also been forced to close immediately. Violent protests erupted, with roads being blocked, and G9 launched its second blockade of the varro fuel terminal, Once again demanding the resignation of Ariel Henry. The country ground to a halt. Gas stations closed. Schools delayed the beginning of the academic year. Hospitals were forced to massively reduce services because they couldn't get the fuel for their generators.

Water delivery companies had to close, and cholera made a return. Those that could afford it resorted to buying fuel on the black market, which cost at least 10 times the usual price. And so, with the growing crisis in October 2022, the Haitian government authorized Ariel Henry to request foreign military support to combat the growing power of the gangs. Here's Sophie rutenbach, A visiting scholar at the New York university center on international cooperation.

Ariel Henry first requested the deployment of an international intervention to support the Haitian national police in September 2022, when there were significant protests against some measures he'd taken. And the gangs took advantage of that opportunity to essentially blockade the port where most if not all of Haiti's oil and gas products are brought in and distributed.

So essentially you had for close to three months in fall 2022, a situation where there was almost no oil and gas in the country and things were at a standstill, no cars moving on the streets. The situation was bad enough that the lack of the ability to purify water is connected to the re emergence of cholera in October 2022. So terrible situation. Ariel Henri requests international intervention to help him sort of reestablish control.

There's a long process of sort of trying to figure out what this might look like. There's little desire to do a UN peacekeeping mission given the long history of peacekeeping in Haiti. So they look for sort of some support that could be kind of an ad hoc multinational force. But no one is willing to really step up and take the lead. So they approached a few different countries, Canada and Brazil among them.

No real appetite to kind of step into a pretty dangerous situation with really difficult objectives to try and achieve. Haiti was left in limbo. International support was not forthcoming, that is until June, July, the following year, when the government of Kenya stepped forward. Kenya, to the surprise of the United States, was willing. There are a number of reasons behind that. Domestic political considerations, individual personalities and shifting geopolitics.

It's not the most natural first country that comes to your mind when you think of a country to sort of fly halfway across the world and lead an intervention in the Caribbean. But they stepped forward in July 2023. There were some further hiccups from there. So the UN Security Council authorized the mission in October 2023. The mission was to be called the Multinational Security Support Mission, or mss.

But getting this Kenya led mission up and running was a challenge as the Kenyan government had some legal challenges to contend with. Namely, the High Court of Kenya temporarily blocked the deployment with a ruling judge describing it as lacking constitutional and legal foundation. And it was shortly after this that we return to the very start of this episode. And that's the birth of Vivonson on

29 February 2024. It was probably the worst possible development for the reeling Haitian state as G9 and their arch rivals GPEP, buried the hatchet to form this new gang coalition. These two powerful gangs, as known brands, they operated a sort of franchise system to entice smaller and newer gangs into their coalition, spreading their influence further. Now they'd combined to create a super gang, for want of a better phrase.

At the announcement of Vivonson, barbecue pronounced their aims again the removal of Ariel Henry. But Also other government ministers. He finished with this statement. We, the armed men, have decided to take the future into our own hands. Here's Widlaw Merencourt, editor in chief at the Aebo Post. We want some is coalition of some of the biggest gangs in Haiti. The reporting shows that the coalition is allegedly linked to drug trafficking and they control a huge swath of border prints.

They have as a spokesperson Jimmy Cherizier, who is a former police officer implicated in multiple massacres and the public claims of Ivan Sahm is to conduct what they call the revolution against the corrupt politicians and corrupt business leaders of the country. However, since the inception and the resurrection of of Vivant Somme sometimes last year, but especially back at the end of February and March 2024 when they attacked multiple institutions in Port au Prince.

They opened the two biggest prisons of the country in Port au Prince, one in Kwasibuquet and the other one in Port au Prince, releasing some of the most dangerous inmates in the streets, destroying hospitals and shutting down schools and businesses. Their goal is to conduct a revolution for the poor in the country.

But those suffering from the violence, those leaving the houses, more than a million people, those suffering from food insecurity, more than half of the country, those are the ones suffering today with the actions of village.

Remember that Ariel Henry was out of the country first at an international summit of the Caribbean Community and Common Market Caricom before heading straight to Kenya to sign a reciprocal security agreement with his counterpart in Nairobi on 29th February, the same day as the announcement of Vivonson. Vivonson immediately went on the offensive. As Whidlo just said, the jailbreak in early March 2024 again highlights the strategic thinking of Vivonson.

To distract authorities, gangs launched a coordinated attack on multiple police stations. While attention was diverted, the gangs led another assault, this time on two prisons, one in Port au Prince and the other in Croix de Bouquet, on the edge of the capital. Twelve people were killed in the attacks and of the 4,000 prisoners kept at the jails, around 3,700 inmates escaped down to Haiti, where the government has declared a state of emergency. As violence escalates, armed gangs demanding the.

Prime Minister's resignation have attacked two prisons, allowing thousands of inmates to escape and. Leaving dozens dead and wounded. Ironically, some of those who chose to stay were the Colombian hitmen involved in the assassination of President Moise. The government declared a 72 hour state of emergency and a curfew. This curfew, unsurprisingly, was completely ignored by the gangs. Violence escalated, including an attack on on the international airport.

These attacks were actually repelled by security forces, but it did force the airport to ground all flights. So why attack the airport? Well, the gangs were trying to prevent Ariel Henry from returning to the country. And it worked. Unable to land in Haiti, his plane asked for permission to land in neighboring Dominican Republic. This was denied, and he was forced to instead land in Puerto Rico. The writing was on the wall for Ariel Henry. What little international support he had drained away.

On 24 April 2024, Ariel Henry's embattled reign came to an end. He resigned. He still hasn't returned to Haiti. The prime minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, has agreed to resign and make way for a transitional authority as his country wrestles with growing anarchy. He's been stuck in Puerto Rico, unable to return. US officials say he's welcome to remain on US soil if he wishes. Mr. Henry has held the unelected role since the assassination in 2021 of the country's last president.

Armed groups have been calling for Mr. Henry to step down, leading to widespread violence. The gangs did not have everything their own way. In mid March, one of the prisoners that had escaped in the mass jailbreak was a gang leader known as T Greg. He was part of the Viv an somme alliance. As the leader of the Delmas 95 gang, he was killed in a shootout with Haitian police in the capital.

This came just a day after another gang leader known as McCandal, alongside another suspected gang member, was caught by an alleged Brokeli vigilante group and they were set on fire. One of the bodies was reported to have had its hands cut off. After Ariel Henry's resignation, a new nine person transitional council was put in place. Job d'un vivant. They had achieved their overarching mission, the removal of Ariel Henry. Time to lay down your arms and let Haiti rebuild. Well, barbecue.

Not one to shy away from the spotlight, turned to social media and said, whether or not you're installed, this message is for you. Brace yourselves.

So let's turn to the Haitian National Police because it will give us a better understanding of what the MSS was about to walk into. The gangs have been actively targeting officers since 2021. Well over 100 officers have been killed with many more injured. They've attacked police stations and posts. And in that same year, over 400 police facilities were non operational due to gang attacks. Attempts to rebuild these facilities has also been hamstrung by ongoing assaults.

When Vivonson was announced and immediately went on the offensive, breaking inmates out of two prisons and attacking the Airport. Remember that the diversion that helped the gangs achieve that was attacking police stations. They managed to seize two police stations in the very center of Port au Prince. A spokesman for the Haitian National Police said that the city center was at war and the police were overwhelmed by the gangs. These attacks led to four officers being killed.

The Haitian National Police lacked numbers, equipment and safe transport. And then, of course, corruption. Now, it's important to say that not all officers are corrupt, but there is undoubtedly some connections between some officers and the gangs. One who spoke to the GI said that it was obvious that this was the case because often details of law enforcement operations were leaked to the gangs ahead of time. And obviously this massively reduces trust between colleagues.

And when you are talking about something that could literally mean life and death, such as confidential operational details, the damage to morale must be absolute. This frequent violence against police has led many to resign their positions or just abandon their posts. We heard earlier how some officers who were trying to do their job, arresting someone, only to be forced to release them and then essentially threatened and driven out of the country. They had no support from the state.

According to contacts within the police that spoke to the GI, over 900 officers fled Haiti in 2023. All of this makes recruitment particularly difficult. Here's Sophie. People have been absent from post, People have been leaving the country, and the H and P has not been able to sort of keep up recruitment to fill in those slots for people who've left. And even worse, for quite a while, the area around the police academy in Port au Prince was controlled by gangs.

So you couldn't even safely conduct basic training courses for police officers. So there were a couple of years when you had none or maybe one police academy class that was graduated. And you know, you're really at that point not achieving replacement, much less growing the police force. So there are some improvements in that. The MSS has set up a contingent, I think, in that area around the police academy. They're working to try and kind of make it safer.

They have graduated a couple of classes recently. The courses for those classes were shortened given the sort of exigency of the situation, which then raises other concerns about having police officers in the street with insufficient training. But they are trying to increase the size of the police force, and that's definitely an area where a lot more needs to be done. We all want Haitians to be responsible for the security of Haitians.

And the only way to do that is if you have a well trained, responsible, well equipped and effective security forces that are able to kind of take

on that security role. While saying all this, the Haitian national police have tried to fight back against the gangs. For example, in november last year, vivonson launched an attack on the neighborhood of salino, an area of port au prince they didn't yet control. As the attack took place, residents called local radio stations, pleading for help. One 18 year old was struck and killed by a stray bullet while sitting in her home watching a movie.

Vivonson members set about burning homes and chanting, if you're not with Vivonson, we're going to burn you to ashes. Those who fled ran through the neighborhood next to celino shouting, wake up, wake up, wake up. The bandits are coming. And the citizens listened and began blocking the roads towards salino. The sounds of war ring out.

In a residential neighborhood in Haiti's capital, residents joined plainclothes police trying to fight off an attack from a gang hoping to extend its territory to salino. Since Sunday, armed men have repeatedly attacked it. Amid a fresh offensive on Thursday, the worst so far, residents fled their homes or were forced out.

In response, acting prime minister garrick o'neill ordered the recall of several hundred police officers and elite soldiers who had been tasked with protecting high ranking officials. They were going to be redeployed to salino. Over the course of the day, police managed to hold off the vivonson attack and at least according to their statements, pushed the gangs back.

But there were rumblings around this whole thing with citizens claiming that police colluded with the gangs before the attack took place place. And then the general fear was how long will the police be able to hold back Vivonson? And the answer was about a month. Solino is now under gang control. And here lies the problem for the Haitian national police. Even if they manage to take territory, they have an inability to hold it. And that means the gangs can just wait it out.

And when the police withdraw, the gangs return. Here's Jacqueline charles from the miami herald. And I'm thinking about in particular 2019, which was the last time that you had the police who were able to go in as security forces, and they went into that community and they were there for several weeks before they left and lost complete control of that community. Because while they were in there, the police were in there. You needed for social services to come in there.

You needed for the department of education to come in there. You needed for this whole government apparatus to come and to give people the sense that the government was present and that aid was present and that there was a path forward and so that they can be re empowered themselves. So that the next time, if a group comes in and try to take over, they have the desire to fight back, right? Not because we formed this vigilante group, but because we have something

that we. Can protect in the meantime. The MSS, led by Kenya, arrived on June 25, 2024, almost two years after Ariel Henry's request for international help. A couple hundred police officers from Kenya landed in Haiti's capital, Port au Ponce, whose main international airport reopened in late May after gang violence forced it to close for nearly 3, 3 months. They are the first batch of 1000 troops that Kenya expects to deploy to the Caribbean country.

The initial contingent was 200 Kenyan officers hoping to aid in regaining some semblance of control over the country, working alongside the Haitian National Police. Other countries have also pledged support in various forms, like El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica and others. The original plan for the MSS was that a full deployment would include 2,500 personnel, provisional operational support for planning and conducting joint security operations to counter the gangs.

This included the security of critical infrastructure such as airports, ports, schools and hospitals. The mission was for an initial 12 months with a review at 9. Remember that this is not a UN mission, so it doesn't have access to the financial and logistical mechanisms that would come along with that. Instead, it was a resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Security Council. But for Haitians on the ground, would you even differentiate between the two? Here's Sophie.

So, no, I don't think that people necessarily see the MSS as totally separate from the un. They certainly at least see the connections. It may not be, you know, a full UN peacekeeping force. These police officers are not driving around in UN branded armored personnel carriers. But that connection is there.

I think most of all, what people see is a force that has come a very long way and been deployed on their soil at great expense and that they don't see as making a measurable and clear difference in their lives and in their security. So I think to a point, it's not even sort of whether or not they think about it as a UN mission or not. They don't think about it as an effective measure for making their lives better, which is really concerning.

There have been some offensive operations against the gangs. For example, in October 2024, Haitian and Kenyan police entered the gang control area of Torceli in Port au Prince. During the raid and the firefight that ensued, at least 20 gang members were killed. And the second in command of the Krasay Bahe gang, a man known as Des Ormes, was shot and injured in November, another joint operation targeted Barbecue himself.

They entered the lower Delmas area of the capital, and during the clashes, again, a number of gang members were killed. But drone footage caught the moment the Barbecue fled. The home he was using was destroyed in the operation. Of course, Barbecue took to social

media to claim victory. But that being said, we've talked about previous international engagements in Haiti and that they've been largely ineffective, sometimes even leaving the country in a worse state. And unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the Kenyan led force, it has so far been largely ineffective at combating the gangs. Here's Whitlaw. Increasingly, the Kenyans are being perceived as quote, unquote, tourists in Haiti. Right.

They came to the country last June, and the force in itself was supposed to be 2500. Over the next months, new contingents arrived, but they are still not the 2500s. That's the first thing. The second thing is if you talk to the members of the force, they will appear confident, but at the same time, they will stress they are doing everything they can with the equipment and the resources that they have.

One of the biggest issues of this force is the fact that they are not well equipped for the kind of fights and battles they have to conduct. In Haiti, for instance, they need helicopters, air cover to attack the gangs. They don't have that right. They need specialized drones and all sorts of equipments that will help them infiltrate the houses and fight effectively. The gang members hiding there, what they have is, you know, armored cores, and most of them do not leave their armored corps.

And you cannot effectively fight against extremely mobile gang members who are hidden between houses. And when you have an armored car that cannot penetrate these spaces. And so we see some of the same problems that have hindered the Haitian National Police. Their lack of manpower, lack of financing, lack of trust between parties, and a lack of appropriate equipment. Now, we shouldn't blame the individuals for this. They are still doing what they can, and it's obviously a really dangerous job.

Indeed, a couple of Kenyan officers have been killed in battles against the gangs. A community mourns as officer Samuel Tompoye is gaining, given final honors, and laid to rest. He was killed while on patrol in. Haiti, sent there by the Kenyan government. To help keep the peace. He lives behind a wife and two children. Naomi Tompoe says she doesn't know how. She'Ll manage without his support. And this actually is an important point.

The lack of necessary equipment was brought up by MSS officers themselves. They had real concerns that if they got injured during an engagement with the gangs, that they'd need a way to be safely evacuated for medical treatment. Here's Sophie. So one of the important shifts in the last two months that I mentioned is the deployment of a Salvadoran helicopter contingent. So they have provided assets.

Those assets are mostly intended to be able to casavac casualty evacuate members of the MSS who are injured in exchanges of fire with gangs. But that was a real concern for many members of the mss, that why should we risk our lives, you know, if we're injured, if we're not able to be taken care of? So that is, I think, an important response to concerns expressed by officers in the mss. That's a very, very new development. So how that will work is unclear. It's also those helicopters are.

I think there's three of them. I think they're mostly intended for medevac and Kazavak, as opposed to actual air operations. There is some drone capacity with the Haitian National Police, but it is limited. I think the other thing to flag is maritime capacity. So at least one of the gangs has a number of boats, maybe not an armada, but certainly a fleet much larger than the Haitian Coast Guard.

And so the gangs are able to kind of avoid any interference on the roads because they're able to move around by sea and sort of project force

by sea. That's right. The gangs also appear to have their own version of a navy. They're attacking small boats carrying Haitians along the coast. Whidlo's Aebo Post did a story on this in 2022 and reported how the use of water to transport goods was a good way to avoid checkpoints that litter the roads on the gang controlled land. But the gangs noticed this too, and so began patrolling the coastline and boarding boats and stealing everything.

They told of this one story of the Mezzi manman, a small boat that ran up and down the coast west from Port au Prince, transporting things like passengers, seafood, rice, and fuel. They were followed by a small motorboat, and when it got closer, they saw that heavily armed masked men were on board. They ordered the Mezzi manman to stop or they would shoot. They proceeded to board the Mezzi, searching the passengers, taking money, cell phones, suitcases, and even the two engines on board.

The owner of the boat is now indebted to the people whose cargo was not delivered. And it's not just small boats that have been affected. Like the aircraft attempting to land at the airport, gangs have fired weapons at container ships in an attempt to block them from loading and unloading containers. Indeed, one shipping company told Reuters that two of its crew had been kidnapped.

The attacks from Vivonson caused land access to the main port in Port au Prince to be closed in September 2024 after they shot at a crane operator attempting to unload a ship. He had to go to hospital and the ship left without unloading. The port remained closed for a number of weeks. And one thing to understand about the mss, their mandate includes providing support for the provision of security for critical infrastructure and transport locations.

This obviously includes the ports themselves, but they obviously don't have the capacity or equipment to operate at sea. That falls to the small Haitian coast guard, which in a report to the UN Security Council, they were described as being understaffed and under equipped. So let's briefly look at the funding of the mss, because it's helpful to understand the difference between say, a UN peacekeeping mission and the mss.

A peacekeeping mission means that there is a central fund from the UN which member states contribute to. But the MSS is not a UN peacekeeping mission and instead is funded through a trust fund which interested countries can contribute. In this case, the mission needed an estimated $600 million for a year of operation, but so far this figure has not been reached.

Although the US and Canada have made significant contributions, the majority of US funding has been delivered separate to the fund set up by the un. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, at a joint press conference in the Dominican Republic recently stated that they will continue to support the current mission.

But towards the end of April this year, Dorothy Shea, the interim charge d'affaires at the US mission at the un, said that America cannot continue shouldering such a significant financial burden and called for. Others to step up support. The UN Special Representative in Haiti said that the country had reached a pivotal moment and was approaching a point of no return. Looking at all of this at the moment, it's almost like the MSS force has been set up to fail.

It's remarkable that we're here talking about the same issues that are impacting the Haitian National Police. And we haven't even discussed strategy because the gangs sure have one.

Here's Romain Grandmason, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. I mean, the installation of Vilson was incredibly important for the gangs, I think, because before that, most of the shootings, most of the confrontations were not gangs against the police, but it was actually inter gangs wars. So you would spend so much time, energy, money, weapons, people to actually fight your neighbor.

The fact that they stopped doing this and created this alliance has effectively almost taken Intra gang violence to zero.

And basically the gangs could therefore concentrate on controlling and organizing their territory and populations, focusing on better organizing extortion mechanisms, trafficking routes for firearms and ammunitions, corruption network, becoming richer and better armed, and also focusing basically on, you know, securing their turfs and securing their areas to make sure that they can wait and fight the Haitian National Police or the MSS when they would come, or actually expand whenever they want.

So instead of being so concerned and bothered by, you know, fighting your neighbor gang, you just focus on organizing your turf and making sure that you're ready for whatever happens. So it's. It's been a very, very, very rational choice in a way, and very rational invention that at the beginning was not. Was not necessarily made for success. I mean, the gangs came from years of confrontations, years of massacres, years of making enemies, going at war with each other.

And they honestly showed something quite astonishing and very unfortunate, which is their ability to actually work together. If you had asked me a year ago, do you think the gangs will actually get along and fully come into this solid coalition, I would have said no. To be honest, and in some kind of cruel twist of irony, it's the Haitian state and the international community who appear not to have an effective strategy.

We, the international community, have deployed a troop on the ground, a group of police agents that are present in Haiti. But there's never been a moment of proper long term or short term organization and operation planning in a very tactical and operative way. How do you design an operation in a context like Port au Prince? How do you get proper intel in a context in which you have leaks of information constantly? How do you conquer a territory?

How do you operate in a very entrenched gang neighborhood? How do you protect civilians? How do you enter in the neighborhood? How do you exit the neighborhood? What type of equipment do you need to do so? And this has been so blatant in the way that the MSS at the beginning received armored vehicles that were not adapted to the terrain in Haiti. I mean, this is as bad as it got.

Basically, that because there was, I think, no strategic planning, at least not enough, the MSS did not receive the proper vehicle. So it's like asking you to conduct the mission without giving you the appropriate tools.

And I think this is one of the massive failure of the mss, and I'm not blaming the Kenyan police agents in that case, which are honestly between a rock and a hard place, and they've been at the very same hard place for the past nine months, is that we're blaming them collectively for not achieving and not reaching success. But we never, until now, we never gave them the tools to actually properly conduct the mission and make it a success. So right now we're.

We're in this source of impasse in which the MSS is there, but it doesn't have the tools to fully and properly conduct its mission, which is support the HNP on the ground.

And then you have, unfortunately, a series of issues of bad coordination between the HNP and the mss, probably a lack of trust between the two as well, that lead to badly designed and badly conducted operations that lead to a fact, an unfortunate and sad fact, but that since the MSS deployed in June 24, the National Forces or the international forces have been unable to recover a single inch of territory from the gangs. That's right.

Since the MSS has deployed alongside the Haitian national police, not only has territory not been recaptured from the gangs, but the gangs have expanded. The gangs control more territory within Port au Prince. They control more territory outside of Port au Prince. They control more territories on the coasts of Haiti. They control more accesses to the Dominican Republic at the border than ever before.

And I think it's also why it's so critical to not necessarily reinvent the will and think like, how can we manage to change the MSS and turn it into something different? It's actually maybe a moment to recognize that we have failed at the very beginning when operations planning did not not occur and actually go back to it and literally sit down and make sure that there is some actual strategic planning on how to conduct an operation, on how to regain this territory or the other territory.

Where do we focus? For example, last year when the MSS was deployed, they said, we will focus on regaining control of strategic and crucial roads in the country. And then we will focus on retaking and regaining control on strategic accesses to the ports, for example, because Haiti is half an island. So if you, if you control the port, you control the country. That was not a bad idea back then. The thing is, we haven't seen it on the ground.

We haven't seen, like, how, how do you actually take control of the port back? How do you get to the port? How do you occupy a territory? The latest news coming out of the US is that the Haitian gangs be designated terrorist organizations. Vivonsom and the Grand Griff gang have been added. Marco Rubio said that the age of impunity for those supporting violence in Haiti is over. How effective this will be, time will tell.

But in the meantime, the humanitarian situation Gets worse and worse. Doctors Without Borders posted pictures on X just a few weeks ago of their vehicles riddled with bullets and broken glass, clearly marked with the organization's logo. The vehicles also sported multiple round stickers, the border of which was a thick red line giving way to a white inner circle, the kind you'd see on a road sign. But in the centre of this sticker was a black automatic rifle with a red cross over the top of it.

The pictures shared showed bullet holes and shattered glass right next to these stickers. They were fired upon by gangs as they evacuated a hospital in Port au Prince, where they'd recently announced a suspension of services due to the escalating violence. Fortunately, no one was killed.

We've heard about the earthquake in 2010, something that the country never truly recovered from then, the further descent into chaos after the assassination of President Moise and of course, the rise of the gangs. Remember, the population of Haiti is around 11 million. According to current estimates, a million people are now internally displaced, many with nowhere to live. As their houses were burnt down, they have no possessions because they could only take what they could carry.

These criminal gangs have got their feet planted on the neck of the Haitian population. Here's Bill O'Neill, the UN Independent Expert on the human rights situation in Haiti. The humanitarian situation is absolutely catastrophic. I've been to Haiti. I've worked in and on Haiti many years. As I said, I've worked in these other countries in West Africa and Nepal and places that have been pretty desperate. Haiti is way up there in terms of humanitarian needs, and it's all driven by insecurity.

This is all caused by the gang violence. So, for example, pick your sector. Healthcare. Very, very difficult to get access to healthcare in the capital city now. Roughly 63% of the medical facilities are not functioning because of the gangs. They've either destroyed them, attacked them, occupied them, and that's not an accident. This is a widespread and systematic attack on the healthcare system by the gangs.

They've attacked professionals, physicians, nurses, technicians, killed some, kidnapped others. Education, same thing. Many, many schools are closed in the capital because of gang violence. It's not safe for the children to be going to or from their schools. Sometimes the schools have been destroyed or occupied. And the third element to this, which I'll mention now, is the internally displaced population, the people who have been forced to flee their homes. It's now over 1 million.

It's roughly 1 in 10 Haitians are forced to flee their homes because of the violence. They have miserable conditions and some of them have also occupied schools. It's, it's, it makes sense because schools have a wall, have a perimeter. Some of them even have running water or a roof. That then means that is no longer a school. It's an IDP camp, essentially. So even if the children in that area could safely go there, they can't anymore because it's, it's a camp, not a school.

So the right to education has been severely affected by the violence, hunger, Right to food, World Food Program. The statistics come out every month and they get worse and worse. More than half of Haitians now don't know where their next meal is coming from.

At one point, there were parts of Cite Soleil, the biggest slum area in Port au Prince, that for the first time, I'm told in World Food Program's record keeping, they declared famine conditions in the western hemisphere that had never happened before. The sexual violence is off the charts, especially of young girls and women in these camps. Also, we're getting more and more reports.

Reports recently Doctors Without Borders came out with a report about a month ago that the girls and young women in internally cover topics from all over the world forced into prostitution or out now say they're in charge of the camp. Who knows story about the mother who had her baby from her arms by the gang firing kings. I can go on and on and on, but you get the picture. It is the gang is.

But the conditions that allowed their rise lies at the defeat of the Haitian political class and the international community. All the while, it's the people of Haiti that suffer the consequences as they are caught quite literally in the firing line.

So as we approach the end of this episode and this mini series on Haiti, what comes next? Here's Romain. We have the MSS there and the international community. In that case, the us, Canada, France to a certain extent, have put money. Kenyans have put people. I think we have to do something to actually make sure that this effort is not absolutely wasted, or we have to cancel it right away and say, you know what, thank you, thanks so much, you can go back home.

Otherwise it's an incredible waste of time, energy, personal and money. I mean, there's. We're talking like probably half a billion dollars, something already spent. It has to go for something. The main issue we have right now is the lack of political will to probably back up the MSS a bit more and also to make sure that it actually coordinates and works much better with the Haitian national police.

Because if the coordination and the dialogue and the cooperation between the two do not work, it won't take us anywhere. Because I don't think right now that the Haitian National Police has alone the ability to retake the territory from the gangs for multiple reasons that go from corruption to lack of people and equipment. But the MSS doesn't have that ability neither. So they have to work together. And I think now is the moment to actually find a way to relaunch that effort on a single track.

What we have right now is parallel tracks that don't talk to each other, don't communicate with each other, don't cooperate with each other. Therefore, the effort is so vain that we don't pursue a single common objective on the ground. But I do think that instead of, you know, imagining right now what could be or not be or might be a peacekeeping operation in Haiti and what type of peacekeeping operation and what model, etc. Etc.

Which has been the debate at the Security Council for the past, you know, three, four months now, the debate is gone. It's almost vanished again.

But I think instead of only focusing on what could be, you know, a peacekeeping operation in an ideal world and that peacekeeping operation taken and granting the fact that Russia and China would approve it, that peacekeeping operation would come probably in the best case scenario, like 10, 12 months from now, 10, 12 months from the moment it's approved and signed. What do we do in the meantime? We need a plan for now.

We need to show the Haitian population that there is a discussion, there is a plan and there is a will to actually change the country now. Not like three years from now, five years from now. Because people will tell you, you know what, five years from now, there's going to be nothing left to save here.

And what's unfortunate is, honestly, over the past year, since the creation of Virance Homme, Living Together, the gang Coalition, the only actor on the ground that has the initiative are the gangs. Not the international community, not the national police, not the government or the transitional presidential council. The only actor that has the initiative on the ground are the gangs.

That's it for this episode of Deep Dive. I'd like to thank Widlaw, Jacqueline, Bill, Sophie and Romain. In the podcast notes, I've put links to various papers and analysis into the situation in Haiti produced by the gi. You'll also find relevant research links used for this episode. For more research into organized crime around the world, head over to our website, globalinitiative.net.

if you head over to our YouTube page, you can watch the first series of Underworlds with Mark Shaw, where Mark sits down with prominent authors who investigate and write books about organized crime like Nicola Talon and Jake Abbott. This has been deep dive from the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. I'm Jack Meekin. Vickers, thanks for listening.