UN Calls for Multinational Security Support as Killings, Kidnappings Spike in Haiti

The United Nations has called on the international community to accelerate the deployment of a multinational security support mission to Haiti amid a surge in killings and kidnappings in the country. More than 8,400 people were killed, injured, or kidnapped in Haiti last year, a 122 percent rise from 2022, the United Nations Integrated Office (also known as BINUH) said in a report released on Feb. 2. According to the report, about 80 percent of these incidents were reported in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where criminal groups have been marking their territorial expansion through large-scale attacks. “Persistent gang violence in the capital and Artibonite department, and the failure of state authorities to protect the population, continued to fuel mass lynchings and murders perpetrated by ‘vigilante groups.’...