Haiti

On April 21, US Ambassador to the United Nations Dorothy Shea urged other countries to “contribute their fair share” to the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, … . “America cannot continue shouldering such a significant financial burden,” Shea said. 

The UN human rights chief sounded the alarm on Friday over the rapidly deteriorating situation in Haiti, calling it a “catastrophe” fuelled by gang violence, widespread impunity and a political process that is hanging by a thread.

The force was attacked by gangs as they were helping a vehicle from the Haitian national police that got stuck in a ditch, the mission said in a statement. … The incident happened on Tuesday during a patrol operation in Haiti's town of Pont-Sondé, the Multinational Security Support (MSS) Mission to Haiti said.

Violence triggers record displacements in Haiti’s capital
In just one month, intensifying violence has forced over 60,000 people to flee their homes in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, marking another grim record in the country’s worsening humanitarian crisis.
 

Haiti is in freefall. Gangs are tightening their grip on the capital, violence is spreading, and “suffering permeates all social strata” in a nation teetering on the brink, according to the UN human rights office’s designated expert on the country, William O’Neill. 

UNICEF’s Ms. Narayan stressed that last year, child recruitment into armed groups “surged by 70 per cent”. “Right now, we estimate that up to half of all armed group members are children, some as young as eight years old,” she said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has ruled out transitioning the multinational security support mission (MSS) in Haiti into a U.N. peacekeeping force for now, and is instead recommending creating a U.N. support mission to back the MSS that will be funded through the U.N. peacekeeping budget. 

Criminal gangs have tightened their grip on much of Port-au-Prince, with the multinational security mission making little headway and transitional authorities mired in internal disputes. The UN Security Council should quickly decide how to respond to Haiti’s request for further assistance in restoring public safety.

The U.S. has notified the United Nations that it is freezing some funding to a U.N.-backed mission in Haiti tasked with fighting gangs trying to seize full control of the country’s capital, the U.N. said Tuesday. The U.S. has been the biggest contributor to the mission led by Kenyan police, which was launched last year and is struggling with a lack of funding and personnel. The change in funding will have an “immediate impact,” U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said.

French President Emmanuel Macron has asked the United Nations to consider sending a peacekeeping force to Haiti. The suggestion was made in a letter Macron sent to the U.N. after meeting with Leslie Voltaire, resident of Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council at the Elysee Palace in Paris.