
Heavily armed gangs now control most Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, and the city is on the brink of total collapse, a senior UN official has warned.
Violence is escalating across the Caribbean nation while the international response remains slow and fragmented, Ghada Fathi Waly, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday. According to UN statistics, at least 5,600 people were killed in gang-related incidents in 2024 alone.
Haiti has been without a president since the assassination of Jovenel Moise in July 2021, leaving a power vacuum that has allowed armed gangs to expand their influence unchecked. In the absence of a functioning central government and with weakened state institutions, the armed groups have grown in strength, seizing territory and increasingly operating as the de facto authorities across the country, particularly in the capital.













Comment: It appears the United Nations is more talk than action or support.