UN chief Guterres calls on world to make troubled Haiti ‘top priority’

PORT-AU-PRINCE – On a visit to spotlight violence and chaos in Haiti, the UN secretary-general on Saturday called for a robust international effort to help the country’s beleaguered police in fighting rampant criminal gangs.

For months, Mr Antonio Guterres has raised the alarm bell about the situation in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, which has been wracked by spiralling violence, a worsening public health situation and political instability.

But he traveled to Port-au-Prince – his first visit to Haiti as head of the United Nations – to make his point on the ground.

“We must put Haiti on the international political map, and make the tragedy of the Haitian people the international community’s top priority,” Mr Guterres told a press conference.

“I met Haitians, and I felt the exhaustion of a population that has been facing a cascade of crises and unbearable living conditions for too long,” he said.

“This is not the time to forget about Haiti,” Mr Guterres said after meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Henry, and other political and civil society leaders.

He urged the UN Security Council, which is due to discuss the Haiti situation later this month, “to authorise the immediate deployment of a robust international security force”.

In October, he relayed Mr Henry’s request for a non-UN force to support the overwhelmed national police force.

But the call has gone unheeded. A few countries have indicated their willingness to participate, but none has volunteered to lead an operation in a country where multiple past foreign interventions have become mired.

“I call on those states that have the capacity to provide a robust security force to stop hesitating and be ready to follow a Security Council decision,” Mr Guterres said.

“Every day counts. If we don’t act now, instability and violence will have a lasting impact on generations of Haitians.”

‘Widespread sexual violence’

UN officials in recent months have offered increasingly grim assessments of the impact of gang shootings, kidnappings and rapes on the Haitian population.

“Port-au-Prince is surrounded by armed gangs blocking the main roads leading to the northern and southern departments, controlling access to water, food and health care,” Mr Guterres said Saturday.

He condemned “in the strongest possible terms the widespread sexual violence used by armed gangs as a weapon to instill fear”.