A nation held hostage: why armed violence in Haiti continues to escalate

EXPLAINER ARTICLE 

A potent mixture of gang warfare, political turmoil and crumbling infrastructure

Haiti returned to headlines this month after the UN reported a summer of violence that saw 471 dead or missing in July alone, owing to gang violence raging in the capital. An average of 20 or more were killed per day in Port-au-Prince as violence and shootings have spiralled since April. 

On August 22 protests and riots broke out as inflation hit a 10-year high, and insecurity and hunger deepened. It is the latest news in an unrelenting chapter of Haiti’s history, which has long been plagued with political instability, corruption, economic collapse, natural disasters and humanitarian crises. Central to the Caribbean state’s troubles is gang violence, which compounds existing efforts to relieve the situation. Why is it getting worse?

The poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti still suffers from the devastation inflicted by its 2010 earthquake and its crumbling infrastructure was dealt another blow by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in August 2021. A disaster which killed over 200,000 and left 650,000 more people in need of emergency assistance. Covid-19 exacerbated the situation by crippling an already weakened state apparatus following the assassination of President Jovenal Moïse in July 2021.

Two-hundred armed gangs now occupy the capital and exploit the power vacuum left in the wake of this instability. Heavily armed and competing with each other for territory and control, the gangs have turned Port-au-Prince into a “barricaded metropolis” according to Dr Djems Olivier from Vincennes-Saint-Denis University, whose research specialises in Haiti’s gangs. Civilians are trapped in the crossfire in a “situation of terror,” he says, which threatens the stability of the whole country. 

"We have an impoverished nation held hostage by armed gangs, and also a nation with no opportunities. People are leaving the political crisis and violence,” Olivier says. Internal displacement adds to instability in the country, whilst those who try to flee Haiti often face forced repatriation (20,000 were sent back between January and June) or tragedies at sea.

The gangs have come to be embedded in Haiti’s daily life and political structure. Often used by powerful government and business elites as a tool for repression and control. “This is what makes the situation so complex,” says Rodrigo Abd, a Pulitzer-winning photographer who has been documenting Haiti’s gangs. “Gang violence is often wrapped up in state violence.” 

However, despite the assumed strength of gangs, most members are “afraid, unemployed, poor, young people with no access to education,” says Abd. 60 per cent of Haiti’s population fall below the poverty line and half are under 24-years-old. Against a crumbling economy, Haiti’s youths are pushed to join gangs as a means of survival to access money for basic needs.

Despite this being an old problem, the gangs are becoming increasingly dominant and violent “with an absence of functional government,” says Chelsey Kivland, a professor from Dartmouth University and author of ‘Street Sovereigns: Young Men and the Makeshift State in Urban Haiti’. 

Kivland believes the solution must involve breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and gang recruitment. “There needs to be major investment in the social sector to provide opportunities for youth to get an education and obtain employment.”

Haiti’s issues are plentiful, but the highest priority must be the restoration of security, says Kivland. “Without this, people will continue to leave Haiti.”