Haiti needs 5,000 intl police to help tackle `catastrophic' gang violence: UN expert
The Peninsula
UNITED NATIONS: Haiti now needs between 4,000 and 5,000 international police to help tackle catastrophic gang violence which is targeting key indivi...
UNITED NATIONS: Haiti now needs between 4,000 and 5,000 international police to help tackle "catastrophic” gang violence which is targeting key individuals and hospitals, schools, banks and other critical institutions, the U.N. rights expert for the conflict-wracked Caribbean nation said on Thursday.
Last July, William O’Neill said Haiti needed between 1,000 and 2,000 international police trained to deal with gangs. Today, he said the situation is so much worse that double that number and more are needed to help the Haitian National Police regain control of security and curb human rights abuses.
O’Neill spoke at a news conference launching a U.N. Human Rights Office report he helped produce which called for immediate action to tackle the "cataclysmic” situation in Haiti where corruption, impunity and poor governance compounded by increasing gang violence have eroded the rule of law and brought state institutions "close to collapse.”
The report, covering the five-month period ending in February, said gangs continue to recruit and abuse boys and girls, with some children being killed for trying to escape.
Gangs also continue to use sexual violence "to brutalize, punish and control people,” the report said, citing women raped during gang attacks in neighborhoods, "in many cases after seeing their husbands killed in front of them.”