At least 2,300 people have been killed since the start of the year in Haiti, a country ravaged by gang violence, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned on Monday June 15.
“In Haiti, gang violence has caused at least 2,300 deaths, 1,100 injuries and 99 kidnappings since the start of the year,” Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Haiti, the poorest country in America, has been ravaged for years by the violence of criminal gangs, who commit murders, rapes, looting and kidnappings.
The High Commissioner urges the authorities “to act quickly to put in place judicial structures to fight impunity”. “The Gang Enforcement Force (GRF),” a multinational mission mandated by the UN Security Council “is urgently needed and must operate in accordance with international human rights law,” he added.
1,500 Chadian soldiers deployed in the coming months
The Security Council decided in September to replace the Multinational Security Support Mission (MMAS) with the FRG, which will be able to have a maximum of 5,500 uniformed personnel, police but also soldiers, unlike the MMAS. The last contingent of Kenyan police officers engaged in the MMAS, which was led by Kenya, left the country at the end of April.
The new force, which should eventually number 1,500 Chadian soldiers, will be deployed “in phases” in the coming months, special representative Jack Christofides, appointed by the group of FRG partner countries, led by the United States, announced to the Security Council on April 23.
