Haiti

(Quelle: UN News) The United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH) today announced the arrival of nearly 100 Chinese officers, including seven women, who are serving with a Formed Police Unit (FPU) in the Caribbean country. The 95 new police, who joined a group of 30 FPU members of the same contingent that arrived last week on 4 April, brings the total number of Chinese officers in Haiti to 125. China has contributed more than 1,000 officers in Formed Police Units since the Mission was established in October 2004 after an insurgency forced then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to go into exile.

(Quelle: UN News) The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has announced plans to provide security and logistical support to the Caribbean country’s Provisional Electoral Commission when it holds local mayoral and municipal elections later this month. About 300,000 voters are expected to cast their ballots on 29 April, voting for 73 delegate seats across 10 districts, MINUSTAH spokesperson Sophie Boutaud de la Combe told journalists on Thursday at the weekly press briefing in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. Ms. Boutaud de la Combe urged all eligible Haitians to vote in the polls, which follow successfully staged legislative and local elections last year.

(Quelle: UN News) More than 400 Haitian gang members have been arrested since the beginning of the year in operations by the Haitian National Police (HNP), backed by United Nations police and military to crack down on violent crime, UN officials reported today. “Our joint operations are increasingly successful,” UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) spokesman David Wimhurst told the UN News Service. “This is the highest rate of arrests and detentions to date.” … The local population played a vital role in many of these arrests by providing information on the whereabouts of gang members to Haitian and UN police via confidential telephone hot-lines which, though already in existence, have been increasingly used during the current crackdown.

(Quelle: UN News) Close on the heals of the capture of one of Haiti’s most notorious criminal armed gang leaders, United Nations peacekeepers and Haitian police have reported new successes in their crackdown on violent crime in Port-au-Prince, the capital, dismantling one group, arresting three dozen more suspects and seizing weapons caches. In one of the latest operations, 32 suspects were arrested in the Linteau 1 and Ti Ayiti quarters of the capital’s Cité Soleil neighbourhood, one of the violence-ridden country’s most dangerous areas, leading to the dismantling of the Blade Nazon and the seizure of arms and ammunition. The operation was launched after UN troops on patrol came under fire.

(Quelle: UN News) United Nations peacekeepers and Haitian police are extending their crackdown on armed gangs in Port-au-Prince, the capital, arresting criminals, seizing weapons and restoring services in cleared areas – from rehabilitating a school used by the gangs as a refuge to building a football field. “The UN peacekeepers are going to continue to pursue the criminals who threaten Haiti’s security,” UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) military spokesperson Laurie Arellano said in her latest update.

(Quelle: UN News) United Nations peacekeepers and Haitian police have completed the first phase of a crackdown on armed gangs in one of the violence-ridden country’s most dangerous areas, the Cité Soleil neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, the capital, arresting dozens of criminals and converting gang headquarters into medical and social centres. … Overall, 55 suspected gang members were arrested, five kidnap victims freed and ammunition and arms seized. Many arrests were aided by the local population, who used confidential hot-lines to pass on information to the Haitian National Police (HNP) or to MINUSTAH, set up in 2004 to help re-establish peace in the impoverished Caribbean country after an insurgency forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to go into exile.

(Quelle: UN News) United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti have arrested 59 suspected gangsters since they launched a crack-down on armed gangs at the beginning of the month in one of the violence-ridden country’s most dangerous areas, the Cité Soleil quarter of Port-au-Prince, the capital. As a result of the clean-up sweeps, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) earlier this week was able to use the sports field in the Bélékou area of Cité Soleil to deliver 5,000 litres of drinking water, 700 meals and medical and dental care to local residents. “We will continue these operations for a better future and for bringing security to the territory of the country, which will allow significant progress and lead to a stable society,” MINUSTAH military spokesperson Major Laurie Arellano told a news conference in Port-au-Prince yesterday.

(Quelle: UN News) Seventeen more presumed gang members have been arrested in one of Haiti’s most dangerous areas, the Cité Soleil quarter of Port-au-Prince, the capital, in the latest sweep by hundreds of United Nations peacekeepers to rid the city of violent crime. The operation yesterday by some 700 UN blue helmets, which also led to the seizure of a number of illegal weapons, was planned and executed in collaboration with the Haitian National Police, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) said in a statement. “It marks an intensification of recent efforts to stabilize and secure the crime-ridden parts of the Haitian capital,” the mission added.

(Quelle: UN News) Extending the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) by another eight months, the Security Council today endorsed its recently stepped-up campaign against armed criminal gangs and called for the operations to continue. In a resolution adopted unanimously, Council members agreed to extend the force – comprised of almost 8,400 troops and police – through 15 October to help establish stability in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. The resolution specifically requested that “MINUSTAH continue the increased tempo of operations in support of the HNP [Haitian National Police] against armed gangs as deemed necessary to restore security, notably in Port-au-Prince,” the capital.

(Quelle: UN News) Some of Haiti’s poorest people can now go about their daily business free from the fear of being terrorized by armed gangs following a large-scale United Nations security operation in the Boston area of the Cité Soleil quarter of Port-au-Prince, the capital, according to the top UN commander in the country. “The situation has been stabilized and UN troops have re-established conditions in this quarter for the Government and international organizations to work there for the wellbeing of the population,” UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) Military Force Commander Major-General Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz told a news conference yesterday in Port-au-Prince. “Under no circumstances can MINUSTAH troops accept that the local population should be victims of armed violence,” he added, referring to the four-day operation which ended yesterday and is part of an ongoing campaign by UN peacekeepers against criminal gangs in the capital.