Haiti names new security chief as gangs step up raids

As Haiti continues to struggle with a surge in gang violence, the government on Tuesday swore in Mario Andrésol as the new state secretary of public security.

Andrésol, who served as director of Haiti’s National Police nearly 20 years ago, pledged to crack down on gangs and crime, including weapons and drug trafficking.

“We need to think or rethink the strategy that will allow us to fight transnational crime that weakens our internal security,” he said at a press conference where he held a moment of silence for victims of violence.

Joining Andrésol was Haitian Prime Minister Alix Fils-Aimé, who said he was taking responsibility for placing “the right people in the right places” to protect Haitians and provide security.

Last week, the U.N. Human Rights Office noted that more than 5,600 people were reported killed in Haiti last year, a more than 20% increase compared with the previous year.

In addition, more than 2,200 people were reported injured and nearly 1,500 kidnapped.

Record displacement

The U.N. migration agency says internal displacement in Haiti, largely caused by gang violence, has tripled over the last year and now surpasses 1 million people — a record in the Caribbean nation.

The International Organization for Migration reported Tuesday that “relentless gang violence” in the capital, Port-au-Prince, has fuelled a near-doubling of displacement there and a collapse of health care and other services, and worsening food insecurity.

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Children make up more than half of the displaced population.

The figure marks a three-fold increase in displacement from the 315,000 in December 2023, IOM said.

Agency spokesman Kennedy Okoth told a U.N. briefing in Geneva that the forced return of around 200,000 people — mostly from neighbouring Dominican Republic — to Haiti over the last year had worsened the crisis.

Both countries share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

Okoth said that the number of displacement sites in Port-au-Prince has risen from 73 to 108 over the last year.