In Haiti, Gang Massacres and Journalist Murders Expose the Country’s Fragility

A fresh injection of about 150 foreign officers arrived in Haiti this weekend to bolster an international security force charged with reigning in the powerful and well-armed gangs that have inflicted so much misery on the country for months.

But if the past is any guide this latest infusion is unlikely to make much of a difference.

Back-to-back massacres that killed more than 300 people, followed by a Christmas Eve assault on Haiti’s largest public hospital have underscored the Haitian government’s increasing lack of control over the nation’s deepening crisis.

A news conference to announce the reopening of a public hospital that had been closed for nine months because of gang violence came under another gang attack, killing two reporters and a police officer.

More than two dozen journalists caught in the ambush were trapped for two hours triaging seven wounded colleagues before they were rescued. They ripped their own clothing to fashion tourniquets and used tampons to stanch the bleeding because, witnesses said, the few doctors at the hospital ran for their lives. Reporters escaped by climbing a rear wall.

“There was blood all over the floor and on our clothes,” said Jephte Bazil, a reporter with an online news outlet, Machann Zen Haïti, adding that the hospital had nothing “available to treat the victims.”

The hospital shooting followed two massacres in separate parts of the country that killed more than 350 people and have shined a harsh spotlight on the failures and shortcomings of local authorities and an international security force deployed to protect innocent civilians.

One of the massacres unfolded last month in an impoverished, sprawling, gang-controlled Port-au-Prince neighborhood where a lack of any police presence meant that for three days older people were dismembered and thrown to the sea without the authorities finding out. At least 207 people were killed between Dec. 6 and Dec. 11, according to the United Nations.

At about the same time, another three-day killing spree took place 70 miles north in Petite Rivière. Community leaders say 150 people were killed as gang members and vigilante groups attacked one another.

The violence is part of a relentless string of bloodshed that has befallen Haiti in the last two months, exposing the fragility of its interim government, raising concerns about the viability of a U.S.-brokered security mission and leaving a planned transition to elections and more stable leadership on the verge of collapse.

With President-elect Donald J. Trump about to assume the reins of an international deployment that has been criticized as ineffective and underfunded, the future of Haiti has never seemed so bleak.

Justice Minister Patrick Pelissier said he believed the 150 soldiers, mostly from Guatemala, should help turn the tide. He stressed that some gang-controlled areas had been retaken and that the government is tending to displaced people.

“The state has not collapsed,” Mr. Pelissier said. “The state is there. The state is working.”

But many experts believe Haiti is a failing state, with various factions of the interim government embroiled in political bickering with no apparent strategy for tackling the worsening violence and providing a path to elections, which were supposed to be held this year.

“Political disputes translate into violence,” said Diego Da Rin, a Haiti analyst with the International Crisis Group. “The gangs are very aware of when is the right moment to shift from defensive mode to offensive mode. They flex their muscles when they need to.”

The gang attacks have also drawn attention to the weakness of the U.S.-backed Multinational Security Support mission, a detachment of several hundred mostly Kenyan police officers that began arriving in Haiti last June.

The mission was supposed to have up to 2,500 officers, but with little international financing, the force numbers far less and lacks the staffing to tackle the many gang-entrenched areas.

Several experts said the Christmas Eve killings gave a sense that the government was inept. The event announcing the hospital’s reopening was held in a gang stronghold, with virtually no security. Even as people came under attack, the police took at least an hour to respond, though their headquarters are nearby.

The country’s heath minister, Dr. Duckenson Lorthe Blema, who was sick and running late, believes he was the intended target.

“I am not crazy — I wanted to do well, and it went badly,” Dr. Blema, who was fired in the aftermath of the attack, said in an interview. “It turned into a fiasco. The scapegoat is me.”

Dr. Blema insisted that he had asked for police deployments at the event and did not know why there was so little protection. He defended the hospital’s dearth of supplies, saying he had intended to open the facility “gradually” as an outpatient clinic, which would not have been for treating gunshot wounds.

The justice minister acknowledged that there was no coordination between the ministry of health and the police, nor was a proper security assessment done in advance.

“Neighborhoods are controlled by gangs, and the police are working to recover them,” he said, noting that while the crisis is severe in the capital and the rural Artibonite Valley, much of the country was operating normally.

Haiti’s descent into chaos was largely triggered by the assassination in July 2021 of its last elected president, Jovenel Moïse. Gangs earning income from illegal checkpoints, extortion and kidnappings used the political vacuum to expand their territories.

With no elected national leaders, the country is ruled by a transitional council made up of rival political parties, with an interim presidency rotating among its members.

The latest surge in violence began Nov. 11, when the council replaced the prime minister, and gangs took advantage of the political upheaval to fire on U.S. commercial aircraft and escalate their brutality. Haiti’s main airport has been closed since.

More than 5,300 people were killed in Haiti last year and the total number of people forced to flee their homes now exceeds 700,000, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Gang checkpoints and ambushes have disrupted food supplies and the nonprofit group Mercy Corp, estimates that nearly 5 million people — half the country’s population — are facing severe food insecurity.

The new prime minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, in his only news conference since taking office nearly two months ago, announced pay increases for police officers and said he was committed to restoring the rule of law.

The prime minister and members of the presidential council declined to comment for this article.

In a New Year’s Day speech, the president of the council, Leslie Voltaire, insisted that elections would still take place this year, but likened the current situation to war. A police spokesman said he had no comment.

The commander of the Kenyan-led mission, Godfrey Otunge, who also did not respond to requests for comment, has complained that the mission’s successes have not been sufficiently touted.

In a recent message posted online, he said “the future of Haiti is bright.”

The U.S. State Department, which has committed $600 million for the Kenya mission, defended its record, noting that a recent operation with the police led to the death of a high-profile gang member.

Two police stations recently reopened and the Kenyan mission now has a permanent presence near the main port, which has long been controlled by gangs, the State Department said.

The U.S. government sent several shipments of materials in December, the agency said.

But absent significantly greater outside help, experts say Haiti’s worsening trajectory is unlikely to be reversed.

“The Haitian government is really not clear on what they are doing,” said Sophie Rutenbar, a visiting scholar at New York University, who helped run United Nations operations in Haiti until 2023. “Unfortunately right now they are faced with not good choices and worse choices.”

Some of the injured journalists blamed gangs — and the government — for a debacle that cost precious lives.

“If the state had taken its responsibilities, none of this would have happened,” said Velondie Miracle, who was shot seven times in the leg, temple and mouth. “The state is a legal force and should not give bandits access to places where the state cannot respond.”

André Paultre contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.