UN Security Council approves new military force to fight Haiti gangs

The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday adopted a resolution to transform a UN-backed security mission in gang-dominated Haiti into a larger, full-fledged force with military troops.

The new force can now have a maximum of 5,500 uniformed personnel, including police officers and soldiers, unlike the current mission, which is just law enforcement. 

US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said the vote by 12 council members "to transform the Multinational Security Support mission to the new gang suppression force, a mission five-times the size of its predecessor" showed the "international community was sharing the burden." 

Washington co-sponsored the enlargement push with Panama.

Currently, just 1,000 police officers, mostly from Kenya, are deployed in Haiti under the Multinational Security Mission (MSS) to support the overwhelmed Haitian police in their fight against rampant gang violence. 

But the mission, which was approved in 2023, has had mixed results.

"Every day, innocent lives are snuffed out by bullets, fire and fear," Laurent Saint-Cyr, who heads the Haitian Transitional Presidential Council, told the UN's signature diplomatic gathering last week. 

"Entire neighborhoods are disappearing, forcing more than a million people into internal exile and reducing to nothing memories, investments, and infrastructure.

"This is the face of Haiti today, a country at war, a contemporary Guernica, a human tragedy on America's doorstep," he said.

Saint-Cyr had thrown his support behind the US and Panamanian proposal to evolve the MSS into a more resilient force for an initial period of one year.

"The Council can help restore peace in a nation currently suffocated by merciless gangs," Panama's ambassador to the UN Eloy Alfaro de Alba said ahead of the vote.

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Kenya's president William Ruto said last week that "with the right personnel, adequate resources, appropriate equipment and necessary logistics, Haiti's security can be restored." 

The major force boost will be accompanied by the creation of a support office within the UN, suggested several months ago by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to provide the required logistical and financial support.

- 'Target gangs' -

US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said last week: "This mandate would empower the force to proactively target gangs and restore security to Haiti while ensuring it has the appropriate tools to succeed the mission's anticipated objectives."

China had expressed skepticism about the role of the MSS without political transition in Haiti, but it abstained during the vote to create it in 2023, as did Russia. 

China and Russia abstained again on Tuesday's vote.

The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti has long suffered at the hands of violent criminal gangs that commit murders, rapes, looting, and kidnappings against a backdrop of chronic political instability. 

The situation has worsened significantly since early 2024, when gangs drove then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign. 

The country, which has not held elections since 2016, has since been led by a Transitional Presidential Council.

gw/iv/aha