Haiti

Hurricane Melissa, which has been barrelling towards Jamaica, is expected to be the most powerful hurricane to ever make a direct hit on the island.

The hurricane intensified on Monday into a Category 5 storm, the most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with wind speeds exceeding 252km/h (157mph). It was expected to make landfall on Tuesday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in the United States. It said the storm will cause “destructive winds” and “catastrophic flooding”, which it forecast to worsen throughout the day and night.

Jamaica’s Meteorological Service added: “Life-threatening storm surge, accompanied by large and destructive waves, is likely along the south coast of Jamaica late Monday through Tuesday morning.”

How did Hurricane Melissa form?

Melissa originated as a cluster of thunderstorms off the coast of West Africa. It travelled west and evolved into a depression. On October 21, it reached tropical storm status.

Over the weekend, Melissa became a Category 4 storm as it made its way west through the Caribbean Sea.

Melissa is the 13th hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. On average, the Atlantic basin experiences about seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes each year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US predicted an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season this year with 13 to 18 named storms.

This is the third Category 5 hurricane of the season after Hurricanes Erin and Humberto.

Authorities use the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale to classify storms. The scale divides hurricanes into five categories based on their sustained wind speeds.

The highest is Category 5, which means a storm that has a sustained wind speed of 252km/h (157mph) or higher. Category 5 storms usually bring “catastrophic damage”, according to the NHC.

How has Melissa progressed? When and where will it hit Jamaica?

In anticipation of the hurricane, residents in Jamaica have been told to protect their homes with sandbags and boards, and to stock up on essentials.

The NHC said hurricane-force winds will extend up to 45km (30 miles) from Melissa’s centre and tropical storm-force winds will extend up to 315km (195 miles) from it.

Here is how the storm has progressed so far:

Monday, 7am in Jamaica (12:00 GMT)

On Monday morning, Melissa was upgraded to a Category 5 hurricane as it moved northwest in the Caribbean.

Tuesday, 1am (06:00 GMT)

Melissa will likely make landfall soon after this time. The NHC said because the storm is moving slowly – at 8km/h (5mph) – it will cause more damage.

“This extreme rainfall potential, owing to the slow motion, is going to create a catastrophic event here for Jamaica,” NHC Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said.

Melissa is expected to bring rainfall of 381mm to 762mm (15 to 30 inches) to portions of Jamaica and additional rainfall of 203mm to 406mm (8 to 16 inches) for southern Hispaniola through Wednesday with rainfall totals of 1,016mm (40 inches) possible. Catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides are likely.

Wednesday, 1pm (18:00 GMT)

Melissa is forecast to pass over Cuba by Wednesday before moving through the Greater Antilles and out into the Atlantic.

It is predicted to weaken to Category 3 by the time it reaches Cuba.

What is the latest on the ground?

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said: “I know that there are many Jamaicans who are anxious, who are very concerned, and rightfully so. You should be concerned.

“But the best way to address anxiety and any nervousness and concern is to be prepared.”

Jamaica’s Meteorological Service has advised small craft operators and fishermen on the cays and banks to remain in safe harbour until wind and sea conditions return to normal

“Leaving the island before the hurricane arrives is not an option,” it said. The main airports – Kingston and Montego Bay – are closed. Kingston’s airport is warning: “Passengers, contact your airline for rebooking. DO NOT go to the airport.”

Warnings have also been put in place for parts of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and eastern Cuba, where Melissa is expected to cause similar damage.

Jamaica’s history of hurricanes

According to the NHC, Jamaica has experienced only one Category 4 storm, Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. It was the most destructive storm in Jamaica’s history and killed at least 45 people.

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy was the first to make landfall on the island since Gilbert. It hit as a Category 1 storm.

In 2024, Hurricane Beryl, a Category 5 storm, brushed the southern coast of Jamaica and caused heavy winds and rain and damaged buildings. It also caused the deaths of four people.

Cars slogged through the flooded streets of Santo Domingo as Tropical Storm Melissa dumped heavy rain and wind gusts up to 80 kilometres per hour. The stom, which also drenched Haiti, is expected to strengthen into a hurricane by Friday.

Oct. 21 (UPI) — Tropical Storm Melissa has begun churning in the Caribbean and is moving toward Haiti, to possibly become a hurricane.

In its 2 p.m. EDT update, the National Hurricane Center said Melissa was about 300 miles south of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and is moving west at 14 mph.

A hurricane watch is in effect for the southern coast of Haiti from the border with the Dominican Republic to Port-Au-Prince, and for Jamaica. Those elsewhere in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba should monitor the progress of Melissa, the NHC said.

A decrease in speed and a gradual turn to the northwest and north is expected in the next few days, the NHC said. Melissa is expected to approach southwestern Haiti and Jamaica later this week, bringing heavy rains.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic can expect 5 to 10 inches through Friday, NHC said. More heavy rainfall is possible after Friday, but forecasters aren’t confident of predictions because of the uncertainty of Melissa’s speed and direction. Areas of significant flash flooding and mudslides are possible.

Over Aruba, Puerto Rico and Jamaica rainfall of 1 to 3 inches is expected through Friday. Flash and urban flooding will be possible across Puerto Rico through at least Friday.

Melissa is the 13th named storm of the season, and it’s the first in the Caribbean. This season has seen few storms, which has warmed the Caribbean Sea. Now, the warm water is fuel for stronger, more dangerous storms.

The United States Treasury has sanctioned two Haitians, one a former police officer and the other an alleged gang leader, for their affiliation with the Viv Ansanm criminal alliance.

On Friday, a Treasury news release accused Dimitri Herard and Kempes Sanon of colluding with Viv Ansanm, thereby contributing to the violence wracking Haiti.

The sanctions block either person from accessing assets or property in the US. They also prohibit US-based entities from engaging in transactions with the two men.

“Today’s action underscores the critical role of gang leaders and facilitators like Herard and Sanon, whose support enables Viv Ansanm’s campaign of violence, extortion, and terrorism in Haiti,” Bradley T Smith, the director of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement.

Since taking office for a second term, US President Donald Trump has sought to take a hardline stance against criminal organisations across Latin America, blaming the groups for unregulated immigration and drug-trafficking on US soil.

Trump has termed their actions a criminal “invasion”, using nativist rhetoric to justify military action in international waters.

Viv Ansanm has been part of Trump’s crackdown. On his first day in office, on January 20, Trump issued an executive order setting the stage for his administration to label Latin American criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organisations”.

That process began several weeks later. In May, Viv Ansanm and another Haitian criminal organisation, Gran Grif, were added to the growing list of criminal networks to receive the “foreign terrorist” designation.

Since the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in 2021, a power vacuum has formed in Haiti. The last national elections were held in 2016, and its last democratically elected officials reached the end of their terms in 2023.

That has created a crisis of public confidence that criminal networks, including gangs, have exploited to expand their power. Viv Ansanm is one of the most powerful groups, as a coalition of gangs largely based in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In July, Ghada Waly, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, warned that the gangs now have “near-total control of the capital”, with 90 percent of its territory under their control.

Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced in the country as a result of the gang violence, a 36 percent increase over 2024. Last year, more than 5,600 people were killed, and a further 2,212 injured.

In Friday’s sanctions, the US Treasury accused Herard, the former police officer, of having “colluded with the Viv Ansanm alliance”, including through training and the provision of guns.

It also noted that Herard had been imprisoned by Haitian authorities for involvement in the Moise assassination. He later escaped in 2024.

Sanon, meanwhile, is identified as the leader of the Bel Air gang, part of the Viv Ansanm alliance. The Treasury said he “played a significant role” in building Viv Ansanm’s power, and it added that he has been implicated in killings, extortion and kidnappings.

The UN Security Council echoed the US’s sanctions against Sanon and Herard, designating both men on Friday. It also agreed to extend its arms embargo on Haiti, which began in 2022.

In September, the UNSC also approved the creation of a “gang suppression force”, with a 12-month mandate to work with Haitian police and military. That force is expected to replace a Kenyan-led mission to reinforce Haiti’s security forces, and it is slated to include 5,550 people.

But on Friday, the Trump administration said that the UN had not gone far enough in its efforts to combat Haiti’s gangs. It called for more designations against individual suspects.

“While we applaud the Council for designating these individuals, the list is not complete. There are more enablers of Haiti’s insecurity evading accountability,” an open letter from US Ambassador Jennifer Locetta read.

“Haiti deserves better. Colleagues, we will continue pressing for more designations through the Security Council and its subsidiary bodies to ensure the sanctions lists are fit for purpose.”

Half of the population is projected to experience critical food shortages by mid-2026 as armed groups block aid.

More than half of Haiti’s population is experiencing critical levels of hunger as armed groups tighten their grip across the Caribbean nation and the ravaged economy continues its downward spiral.

A report released on Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) found that some 5.7 million Haitians – of a population of roughly 11 million – are facing severe food shortages. The crisis threatens to worsen as gang violence displaces families, destroys agricultural production, and prevents aid from reaching those desperately in need.

The assessment shows 1.9 million people are already at emergency hunger levels, marked by severe food gaps and dangerous rates of malnutrition. Another 3.8 million face crisis-level food insecurity.

The situation is expected to deteriorate further, with nearly six million people projected to face acute hunger by mid-2026 as Haiti enters its lean agricultural season.

Haiti’s government announced plans on Friday to establish a Food and Nutrition Security Office to coordinate relief efforts. Louis Gerald Gilles, a member of the transitional presidential council, said authorities would mobilise resources quickly to reach those most affected.

But the response faces enormous obstacles. Armed groups now control an estimated 90 percent of Port-au-Prince, the capital, and have expanded into agricultural regions in recent months.

Violence has forced 1.3 million people from their homes – a 24 percent increase since December – with many sheltering in overcrowded temporary sites lacking basic services.

Farmers who remain on their land must negotiate with gangs for access and surrender portions of their harvests. Small businesses have shuttered, eliminating income sources for countless families. Even when crops reach normal yields, produce cannot reach Port-au-Prince because gangs block the main roads.

The economic devastation compounds the crisis. Haiti has recorded six consecutive years of recession, while food prices jumped 33 percent last July compared with the previous year.

The deepening emergency affects children with particular severity. A separate report this week found 680,000 children displaced by violence – nearly double previous figures – with more than 1,000 schools forced to close and hundreds of minors recruited by armed groups.

The international community authorised a new 5,550-member “gang suppression force” at the United Nations earlier this month, replacing a smaller mission that struggled with funding shortages.

But the security situation remains volatile. On Thursday, heavy gunfire erupted when government officials attempted to meet at the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince, forcing a hasty evacuation from an area long controlled by gangs.

Martine Villeneuve, Haiti director at Action Against Hunger, warned that while some improvements have been made, progress remains fragile without long-term investment to address the crisis’s root causes.

The United Nations Security Council has voted to expand an international security force deployed to Haiti and transform it into a so-called “Gang Suppression Force”.

The resolution passed by the council on Tuesday provides a clear mandate for the force to work with local authorities to “neutralise, isolate, and deter” gangs, secure infrastructure, and seek to secure institutional stability. It would raise the personnel ceiling from 2,500 in the current mission, first approved in 2023, to 5,550 personnel.

The resolution also requests that the UN secretary-general establish a UN Support Office in Haiti to provide increased logistical support amid the Caribbean nation’s overlapping security, humanitarian and political crises.

“The result today allows us to have the necessary reconfiguration on the ground in order to face the gangs and, therefore, address the insecurity situation in the country,” Panama’s Representative to the UN Eloy Alfaro De Alba said following the vote.

“Today, we say to Haiti that, once and for all, you are not alone,” Alfaro De Alba said.

Panama and the United States first introduced the latest resolution in August. It passed on Tuesday with 12 votes in favour and none against. Permanent Security Council members China and Russia, along with rotating member Pakistan, abstained from the vote.

Following the vote, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia said “the tools of international assistance to Haiti” previously approved by the Security Council had “failed to produce any sustainable results”.

He criticised the resolution for having a “virtually unrestricted mandate to use force against anyone and everyone labelled with the vague term ‘gangs’”, while further calling the plan “ill-conceived and rushed”.

Haiti has a controversial history when it comes to foreign intervention, particularly in light of rampant sexual abuses committed by peacekeepers deployed in the wake of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake. The forces were also responsible for a cholera outbreak that killed about 10,000 people.

But speaking last week, during the United Nations General Assembly General Debate, Laurent Saint-Cyr, the current chairman of the Transitional Presidential Council of Haiti, voiced support for a new force, noting that the Kenyan-led security support mission deployed for more than 15 months in the country remains woefully understaffed and underfunded.

Fewer than 1,000 police officers have been deployed under the mission, which is officially set to end on October 2, despite an initial pledge of 2,500. Nearly all of the capital, Port au Prince, remains under the control of powerful gangs.

“It is a war between criminals who want to impose violence as the social order and an unarmed population struggling to preserve human dignity,” Saint-Cyr said.

According to the UN, at least 1.3 million Haitians remain internally displaced due to violence, with 5.7 million facing food insecurity. At least 3,100 people have been killed in violent incidents between January and June 2025. At least 2,300 grave violations against children have been recorded.

The country is also in the midst of a political crisis that began with the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. A general election has been repeatedly postponed amid the unrest.

On Tuesday, acting Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime hailed the resolution’s passage.

“This decision marks a major step forward in the partnership between Haiti and the international community,” he said.

Rights observers have also offered tentative support for a renewed international mission to Haiti, with Human Rights Watch saying any operation must have adequate funding and human rights protections.

The resolution passed on Tuesday does not provide specific details on such safeguards, including clear rules of engagement, saying instead that parties must work to establish those rules in line with “Haiti’s sovereignty and in strict compliance with international law”.

Like the Kenyan-led mission, the new Gang Suppression Force will also mostly rely on often unpredictable voluntary contributions from UN members.

In a statement following the vote, Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said: “After months of reckless inaction, the UN Security Council has finally taken a step to respond to Haiti’s devastating crisis”.

“For the newly created ‘Gang Suppression Force’ to be effective and avoid repeating past abuses, it should have sustained and predictable funding, sufficient personnel, and robust human rights safeguards,” Goebertus said.

Haiti’s transitional leader Laurent Saint-Cyr told the 80th UNGA Haiti faces a “modern-day Guernica,” with rampant killings, rapes, and mass hunger. He urged urgent, large-scale international action to defend democracy, protect children, and secure Haiti’s right to peace.

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire Sept. 10 have status to stay and work in the United States. It also keeps protections for about 500,000 Haitians.

Chen scolded Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for revoking protections for Venezuelans and Haitians that the judge said would send them “back to conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries.”

He said Noem’s actions were arbitrary and capricious, and she exceeded her authority in ending protections that were extended three times by the Biden administration.

Presidential administrations have executed the law for 35 years based on the best available information and in consultation with other agencies, “a process that involves careful study and analysis. Until now,” Chen wrote.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Temporary Protected Status is a designation that can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary to people in the United States, if conditions in their homelands are deemed unsafe for return due to a natural disaster, political instability or other dangerous conditions.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled political unrest, mass unemployment and hunger. The country is mired in a prolonged crisis brought on by years of hyperinflation, political corruption, economic mismanagement and an ineffectual government.

Haiti was first designated for TPS in 2010 after a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of people, and left more than 1 million homeless. Haitians face widespread hunger and gang violence.

Their designations were to expire in September but later extended until February, due to a separate court order out of New York.

Noem said that conditions in both Haiti and Venezuela had improved and that it was not in the national interest to allow migrants from the countries to stay on for what is a temporary program. Attorneys for the government have said the secretary’s clear and broad authority to make determinations related to the TPS program are not subject to judicial review.

Designations are granted for terms of six, twelve or 18 months, and extensions can be granted so long as conditions remain dire. The status prevents holders from being deported and allows them to work.

The secretary’s action in revoking TPS was not only unprecedented in the manner and speed in which it was taken but also violated the law, Chen wrote.

The case has had numerous legal twists, including an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In March, Chen temporarily paused the administration’s plans to end TPS for people from Venezuela. An estimated 350,000 Venezuelans were set to lose protections the following month.

The U.S. Supreme Court in May reversed his order while the lawsuit played out. The justices provided no rationale, which is common in emergency appeals, and did not rule on the merits of the case.

Venezuelans with expired protections were fired from jobs, separated from children, detained by officers and even deported, lawyers for TPS holders said.

The Supreme Court’s reversal does not apply to Friday’s ruling. The government is expected to seek a stay of Chen’s order as it appeals.

Last week, a three-judge appeals panel also sided with plaintiffs, saying the Republican administration did not have the authority to vacate protection extensions granted by the previous administration.

Har writes for the Associated Press.

Ransoms have surged as Haiti struggles with widespread gang violence, particularly around its capital Port-au-Prince.

Eight people, including an Irish missionary and a three-year-old child, have been released following a kidnapping at an orphanage in Haiti.

The announcement on Friday ended nearly a month of captivity for the group, which included Irish missionary Gena Heraty, the director of a special needs programme for children and adults at the Saint-Helene orphanage.

“We warmly welcome the news that Gena and all of the Haitian nationals taken captive on [August 3], including a small child, have been released and are reported to be safe and well,” Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Harris said in a statement posted on X.

Kidnappings and ransoms have become increasingly common in Haiti, where gang violence has surged amid overlapping political, humanitarian and security crises.

The targeted orphanage was located in the southeast of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where the United Nations estimates gangs control nearly 90 percent of the territory.

Run by the international charity Nos Petits Freres et Soeurs, the orphanage cares for more than 240 children, according to its website.

Further details of the release were not immediately available. No group claimed responsibility for the attack on the school in early August, although the area is controlled by the Viv Ansanm gang federation.

In a statement, Heraty’s family said they were “relieved beyond words”.

“We continue to hold Haiti in our hearts and hope for peace and safety for all those who are affected by the ongoing armed violence and insecurity there,” they wrote.

In April 2021, two French priests were among 10 people kidnapped by the “400 Mawozo” gang before they were released nearly three weeks later.

The gang took 17 American and Canadian missionaries hostage from a bus six months later.

Friday’s release came as the UN Security Council began talks to bolster a floundering international police force deployed to Haiti starting in June 2024 to counter the rising violence.

Just under 1,000 personnel, mostly Kenyan, are currently in the country as part of the US-backed mission, a number far below the 2,500 troops originally expected.

A draft proposal, put forth by the US and Panama this week, seeks to transition the mission into a so-called “Gang Suppression Force”.

The proposal would authorise a deployment of up to 5,500 personnel and establish a UN office in Port-au-Prince to provide “full logistical support” for rations, fuel, medical services, ground transportation and surveillance from drones.

It further laid out a plan to encourage more voluntary funding and resources, but the draft did not directly address the current mission’s lagging support. Earlier this month, the UN said its effort to bring stability to Haiti was less than 10 percent funded.

UN missions remain controversial in Haiti, with past deployments resulting in a sexual abuse scandal and cholera epidemic that killed more than 9,000 people.

Still, the country’s leaders have requested external help as violence and displacement have surged.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said at least 3,141 people have been killed in Haiti in the first half of this year.

On Thursday, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that a “staggering” 50 percent of gang members and participants in the country were children.

While many people are forced to flee the violence devastating Haiti, Kareen Ulysse decides to stay and keep her family-run hospital open in the gang-controlled area of Cite Soleil. The chaos that has caused thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than a million people has also led to many babies being abandoned at Hospital Fontaine’s neonatal clinic.

As the airport is closed and hospitals come under increasing attack, the strain on obtaining urgent medical supplies intensifies. Amid this escalating crisis, Kareen finds herself in a race against time to obtain oxygen crucial to the newborn babies in her care.

Healing Haiti’s Children is a documentary film by Rosie Collyer.

Violence remains widespread in Haiti, where powerful armed gangs have surged amid political and economic chaos.

The United Nations has said that efforts to address widespread economic and political dysfunction and debilitating violence in Haiti are falling far short, with a UN response plan receiving the lowest funding of any in the world.

In a briefing on Tuesday, coordinator Ulrika Richardson said that the UN hopes to raise more than $900m for Haiti this year, but that effort is just 9.2 percent funded.

“We have tools, but the response from the international community is just not at par with the gravity on the ground,” Richardson said.

The lacklustre funding numbers underscore concerns over flagging international efforts to assist the Caribbean island nation, which is reeling from violence as powerful armed gangs jostle for control of territory and resources amid political and economic instability.

Richardson said that a $2.63bn appeal for Ukraine is 38 percent funded and that a $4bn appeal for the occupied Palestinian territories is 22 percent funded, by comparison.

More than 1.3 million people have been displaced by the violence in Haiti, and more than 3,100 people have been killed this year.

Armed gangs, some with links to powerful political and economic figures, have taken control of large swathes of the capital of Port-au-Prince since the assassination of former president Jovenel Moise in July 2021.

The UN has said that cutting off the supply of arms pouring into the country, largely smuggled from the US state of Florida, is a key step towards staunching the violence, along with applying sanctions on networks connected to the gangs.

“Haiti can quickly spiral up again, but the violence needs to end,” said Richardson.

But international efforts to address the fighting thus far have little to show, and some Haitians are sceptical of such efforts given a long history of destructive interventions by outside powers.

A UN-backed policing mission, staffed largely by Kenyan security officers, has failed to bring stability to the country or tackle the gangs. Haiti’s government also declared a three-month state of emergency earlier this month, covering the West, Centre and Artibonite departments of the country.

Government says move aims to boost ‘fight against insecurity’ as armed gangs continue to carry out attacks across the country.

Haiti’s government has announced a three-month state of emergency in several parts of the country as it battles surging gang violence.

The measure will cover the West, Centre and Artibonite departments, the latter of which is known as Haiti’s “rice basket” and has experienced an increase in attacks by armed groups in recent months.

In a statement on Saturday, the government said the state of emergency would allow the Haitian authorities to “continue the fight against insecurity and respond to the agricultural and food crisis”.

“Insecurity has negative effect both on the lives of citizens and on the country’s different sectors of activity. Given the scale of this crisis, it is imperative to decree a major mobilisation of the state’s resources and institutional means to address it,” it said.

Haiti has reeled from years of violence as powerful armed groups, often with ties to the country’s political and business leaders, have vied for influence and control of territory.

But the situation worsened dramatically after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, which created a power vacuum.

Nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced across the country, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in June, while the United Nations estimates that 4,864 people were killed from October 2024 to June of this year.

Efforts to stem the deadly gang attacks, including the deployment of a UN-backed, Kenya-led police mission, have so far failed to restore stability.

While much of the focus has been on Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where up to 90 percent of the city is under the control of armed groups, the violence has also been spreading to other parts of the country.

Between October 2024 and the end of June, more than 1,000 Haitians were killed and 620 were kidnapped in the Artibonite and Centre departments, according to the UN’s human rights office.

In late April, dozens of people waded and swam across the Artibonite River, which cuts through the region, in a desperate attempt to flee the gangs.

Meanwhile, the government on Friday appointed Andre Jonas Vladimir Paraison as interim director of Haiti’s National Police, which has been working with Kenyan police officers leading the UN-backed mission to help quell the violence.

“We, the police, will not sleep,” Paraison said during his inauguration ceremony. “We will provide security across every corner of the country.”

Paraison previously served as head of security of Haiti’s National Palace and was on duty as a police officer when Moise was killed at his private residence in July 2021.

He replaced Normil Rameau, whose tenure of just more than a year was marked by tensions with a faction of the Transitional Presidential Council, notably Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime.

Rameau had repeatedly warned about the police force’s severe underfunding.

The change comes as Laurent Saint-Cyr, a wealthy businessman, also took over this week as president of the Transitional Presidential Council, which is charged with holding elections by February 2026.

Haiti has appointed businessman Laurent Saint-Cyr as the head of its transitional presidential council as the country continues to battle rampant gang violence, corruption and economic insecurity.

Saint-Cyr’s inauguration ceremony took place on Thursday at the Villa d’Accueil, a colonial-style mansion in a suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

“We must restore state authority,” Saint-Cyr said at the ceremony. “The challenges we face are certainly linked to insecurity, but they also are the result of our lack of courage, a lack of vision and our irresponsibility.”

But even the location of Saint-Cyr’s inauguration was a sign of the instability Haiti faced. The federal government has been largely displaced from downtown Port-au-Prince, where gangs control nearly 90 percent of the city.

On Thursday morning, one prominent gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, even pledged to disrupt Saint-Cyr’s inauguration.

“We have decided to march on the premier’s office and the Villa d’Accueil to end it all,” Cherizier said in a video posted online.

He called on Port-au-Prince’s residents to assist him and his fighters in their approach of the mansion: “People of Haiti, take care of yourselves and help us.”

But Cherizier was ultimately not successful. A security mission backed by the United Nations and led by Kenya issued a statement explaining that police officers had increased their patrols in the area.

“Armed gangs had plotted to disrupt national stability and render the country ungovernable,” the statement said, asserting that law enforcement had successfully deterred those efforts.

Saint-Cyr’s appointment, however, has drawn scrutiny for what it symbolises in the conflict-torn country.

Both Saint-Cyr and Haiti’s prime minister, Alix-Didier Fils-Aime, are light-skinned, mixed-race businessmen who made their fortunes in the private sector. Saint-Cyr worked in the insurance industry, while Fils-Aime led an internet company.

The majority of Haitians, however, are Black, with only 5 percent of the population identifying as mixed race. The country itself is the poorest in Latin America.

Some critics fear the leadership of figures like Saint-Cyr could herald a slide backwards for Haiti’s government, where power has long been concentrated among the rich and lighter-skinned.

The country has not held a presidential election since 2016, and turmoil in the country increased following the 2021 assassination of Jovenel Moise.

Criminal networks have exploited the power vacuum to expand their own influence, while denouncing the remaining government leadership as inefficient and corrupt.

Though the presidential council was only formed in April 2024, by the end of that year, three of its members had been accused of corruption, though they denied wrongdoing.

The transitional presidential council is considered to be widely unpopular, and its nine members have been rotating into the leadership position.

Saint-Cyr is meant to be the final head of the council before it completes its task of holding a presidential election on February 7, 2026. At that point, Saint-Cyr and the council are expected to hand off power to the election’s victor.

Elections for roles in the federal government are expected to unfold in three stages, starting in November and ending with February’s presidential race. But critics warn gang violence could thwart those plans.

The United Nations estimates that 4,864 people in Haiti were killed from October 2024 to June of this year.

Threats of violence have forced essential services to shut down, including hospitals and roadways, and nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced from their homes.

The humanitarian situation in Haiti is considered among the most dire in the world, and Saint-Cyr called on the international community to respond with further resources.

“I invite all international partners to increase their support, send more soldiers, provide more training,” Saint-Cyr said at Thursday’s ceremony. “I am asking the security forces to intensify their operations.”

Ambassadors from several foreign countries were in attendance. He directed some of his remarks at them.

“Our country is going through one of the greatest crises in all its history,” Saint-Cyr said. “It’s not the time for beautiful speeches. It’s time to act.”

Move comes after Trump administration labeled Haiti’s Viv Ansanm gang a ‘foreign terrorist organisation’.

The administration of President Donald Trump has said it will deport Haitians living in the United States as legal permanent residents if they are deemed to have “supported and collaborated” with a Haitian gang.

The announcement on Monday is the latest move against Haitians living in the US amid the president’s mass deportation drive, and comes as the Trump administration has sought to end two other legal statuses for Haitians.

The update also comes as rights groups are questioning how the Trump administration determines connections to organisations it deems “terrorist organisations”.

In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not reveal how many people were being targeted or any names, saying only that “certain individuals with US lawful permanent resident status have supported and collaborated with Haitian gang leaders connected to Viv Ansanm”.

Following the determination, the Department of Homeland Security can pursue the deportation of the lawful permanent residents, also known as green-card holders, Rubio added.

As the Trump administration has sought to ramp up deportations, the State Department has been invoking broad powers under the Immigration and Nationality Act to attempt to deport people living in the US on various visas, including as permanent legal residents or students.

Under the law, the state secretary can expel anyone whose presence in the US is deemed to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

The administration has sought to deport four people under the law for their pro-Palestine advocacy, which the State Department repeatedly equated, without evidence, to anti-Semitism and support for the “terrorist”-designated group Hamas.

All four people are challenging their deportations and arrests in immigration and federal courts.

In the statement regarding Haitians on Monday, Rubio said the US “will not allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of legal status in our country while they are facilitating the actions of violent organisations or supporting criminal terrorist organisations”.

In May, the State Department labelled the Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif gangs “foreign terrorist organisations”, calling them a “direct threat to US national security interests in our region”.

That followed the February designation of eight Latin American criminal groups as “terrorist organisations”, including the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua.

The administration has used alleged affiliation with the gang to justify swiftly deporting Venezuelans living in the US without documentation under an 18th-century wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act.

Critics have said the removal flouted due process, with court documents indicating that some of the affected men were targeted for nothing more than tattoos or clothing said to be associated with the group.

Haitians singled out

The Haitian community living in the US has been prominently targeted by Trump, first during his campaign, when he falsely accused Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, of “eating” pets.

Since taking office, the administration has sought to end several legal statuses for Haitians, including a special humanitarian parole programme under former President Joe Biden, under which more than 200,000 Haitians legally entered the US.

In May, the US Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to end the special status.

The Trump administration has also sought to end temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians, a legal status granted to those already living in the US whose home countries are deemed unsafe to return to.

In late June, despite the violent crime crisis gripping Haiti, US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem declared that the Caribbean nation no longer met the conditions for TPS.

However, earlier this month, a federal judge blocked the administration from prematurely halting the programme before its currently scheduled end in February 2026.

The Colombian leader opened a new embassy in Haiti, while talks have been focused on security and the fight against drug trafficking.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has travelled to Haiti for the second time this year in a significant show of support, as spiralling gang violence continues to plague the Caribbean country.

Petro’s visit, which began Friday, has focused on talks on security, commerce, education, agriculture and the fight against drug trafficking, the Colombian government said.

Petro announced the opening of a Colombian embassy in the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince.

He has also pledged to help Haiti strengthen its security, offering to train Haitian officers. Haitian delegations have visited a state-owned arms manufacturing company in Colombia to learn about its defence capabilities.

The Colombian government shared a brief clip of Petro speaking at the new embassy: “The time has come to truly unite.”

Por fin, tenemos embajada en Haití.

¿Qué fuerzas impedían en la cancillería que hubiera una embajada en el país desde donde salió nuestra independencia?

¿Sería porque nuestra libertad salió fue de los esclavos negros que se liberaron a sí mismos? pic.twitter.com/tpdpmBptCz

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) July 19, 2025

Translation: Finally, we have an embassy in Haiti. What forces in the Foreign Ministry were preventing the establishment of an embassy in the country from which our independence originated? Could it be because our freedom came from the Black slaves who liberated themselves?

Petro landed in Port-au-Prince, where 90 percent of the capital is under gang control. He was accompanied by officials, including Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez.

During his visit, Petro met with Haiti’s Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime and its transitional presidential council, which is under pressure to hold general elections before February 2026.

The officials arrived less than a week after Haitian authorities killed four suspected drug traffickers and confiscated more than 1,000kg (2,300lb) of cocaine off the country’s north coast.

The seizure was unexpectedly large for Haiti’s National Police, which remains understaffed and underfunded as it works with Kenyan police leading a United Nations-backed mission to help quell gang violence.

While most of the violence is centred in Port-au-Prince, gangs have razed and seized control of a growing number of towns in Haiti’s central region.

At least 4,864 people have been killed from October to the end of June across Haiti, with hundreds of others kidnapped, raped and trafficked, according to a recent UN report.

Gang violence has also displaced 1.3 million people in recent years.

Petro previously visited Haiti in late January. Before his visit, Haitian officials invested some $3.8m to more than double the runway at the airport in the city of Jacmel, renovate the town and restore electricity to a population living in the dark for at least three years.

The two countries are additionally strengthening their ties as judges in Haiti continue to interrogate 17 former Colombian soldiers accused in the July 2021 killing of President Jovenel Moise.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced last month that temporary protected status for about 5,000 Haitians would end Sept. 2, five months earlier than planned. The Trump administration has cited flawed and contradictory assessments of conditions in Haiti — which, make no mistake, remains unsafe.

Although a U.S. district court halted the action — at least temporarily — and reinstated the original termination date of Feb. 3, the administration is likely to challenge the ruling. The outcome of such a challenge could hinge on whether the courts receive and believe an accurate representation of current events in Haiti.

The administration asserts that “overall, country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety.” Nothing could be further from the truth. But few outsiders are entering and leaving the country lately, so the truth can be hard to ascertain.

In late April and early May, as a researcher for Human Rights Watch, I traveled to the northern city of Cap-Haïtien. For the first time in the several years I have been working in Haiti, violence kept me from reaching the capital, Port-au-Prince, where the airport remains under a Federal Aviation Administration ban since November when gangs shot Spirit, JetBlue and American Airlines passenger jets in flight.

In Cap-Haïtien, I spoke with dozens of people who fled the capital and other towns in recent months. Many shared accounts of killings, injuries from stray bullets and gang rapes by criminal group members.

“We were walking toward school when we saw the bandits shooting at houses, at people, at everything that moved,” a 27-year-old woman, a student from Port-au-Prince, told me. “We started to run back, but that’s when [my sister] Guerline fell face down. She was shot in the back of the head, then I saw [my cousin] Alice shot in the chest.” The student crawled under a car, where she hid for hours. She fled the capital in early January.

This rampant violence is precisely the sort of conditions Congress had in mind when it passed the temporary protected status law in 1990. It recognized a gap in protection for situations in which a person might not be able to establish that they have been targeted for persecution on the basis of their beliefs or identity — the standard for permanent asylum claims — but rather when a person’s life is at real risk because of high levels of generalized violence that make it too dangerous for anyone to be returned to the place.

When an administration grants this designation, it does so for a defined period, which can be extended based on conditions in the recipients’ home country. For instance, protected status for people from Somalia was first designated in 1991 and has been extended repeatedly, most recently through March 17, 2026.

Almost 1.3 million people are internally displaced in Haiti. They flee increasing violence by criminal groups that killed more than 5,600 people in 2024 — 23% more than in 2023. Some analysts say the country has the highest homicide rate in the world. Criminal groups control nearly 90% of the capital and have expanded into other places.

Perversely, the Department of Homeland Security publicly concedes this reality, citing in a Federal Register notification “widespread gang violence” as a reason for terminating temporary protected status. The government argues that a “breakdown in governance” makes Haiti unable to control migration, and so a continued designation to protect people from there would not be in the “national interests” of the United States.

Even judging on that criterion alone, revoking the legal status of Haitians in the U.S. is a bad idea. Sending half a million people into Haiti would be highly destabilizing and counter to U.S. interests — not to mention that their lives would be at risk.

The Trump administration has taken no meaningful action to improve Haiti’s situation. The Kenya-led multinational security support mission, authorized by the U.N. Security Council and initially backed by the United States, has been on the ground for a year. Yet because of severe shortages of personnel, resources and funding, it has failed to provide the support the Haitian police desperately need. In late February, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres recommended steps to strengthen the mission, but the Security Council has yet to act.

The humanitarian situation in Haiti continues to deteriorate. An estimated 6 million people need humanitarian assistance. Nearly 5.7 million face acute hunger.

On June 26, just one day before Homeland Security’s attempt to end Haitians’ protected status prematurely, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau described the ongoing crisis in Haiti as “disheartening.” He said that “public order has all but collapsed” as “Haiti descends into chaos.” Two days earlier, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti issued a security alert urging U.S. citizens in the country to “depart as soon as possible.” These are not indications that “country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety,” as Homeland Security claimed on June 27.

The decision to prematurely end temporary protected status is utterly disconnected from reality. The Trump administration itself has warned that Haiti remains dangerous — and if anything has become more so in recent months. The U.S. government should continue to protect Haitians now living in the United States from being thrown into the brutal violence unfolding in their home country.

Nathalye Cotrino is a senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The United Nations has appealed to the international community to bolster its support for Haiti after a report revealed that gang violence has claimed 4,864 lives from October to June.

More than 20 percent of those deaths unfolded in the departments of Centre and Artibonite, indicating that intense violence is spilling into the areas surrounding the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In a report released on Friday, the UN explained that the growing presence of gangs like Gran Grif in those areas appears to be part of a broader strategy to control key routes connecting the capital to Haiti’s north and its border with the Dominican Republic.

“This expansion of gang territorial control poses a major risk of spreading violence and increasing transnational trafficking in arms and people,” the report said.

Among its recommendations was for the international community to better police the sale of firearms to Haiti and to continue to offer support for a Kenya-led security mission aimed at strengthening Haiti’s local law enforcement.

In a statement, Ulrika Richardson, the UN’s resident coordinator in Haiti, explained that propping up the country’s beleaguered police force is key to restoring security.

“Human rights abuses outside Port-au-Prince are intensifying in areas of the country where the presence of the State is extremely limited,” she said.

“The international community must strengthen its support to the authorities, who bear the primary responsibility for protecting the Haitian population.”

The report indicates that the violence in the regions surrounding Port-au-Prince took a turn for the worse in October, when a massacre was carried out in the town of Pont Sonde in the Artibonite department.

The Gran Grif gang had set up a checkpoint at a crossroads there, but local vigilante groups were encouraging residents to bypass it, according to the UN.

In an apparent act of retaliation, the gang launched an attack on Pont Sonde. The UN describes gang members as firing “indiscriminately at houses” along the road to the checkpoint, killing at least 100 people and wounding 16. They also set 45 houses and 34 vehicles on fire.

The chaos forced more than 6,270 people to flee Pont Sonde for their safety, contributing to an already dire crisis of internal displacement.

The UN notes that, as of June, more than 92,300 people were displaced from the Artibonite department, and 147,000 from Centre — a 118-percent increase over that department’s statistics from December.

Overall, nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced throughout the country.

The massacre at Pont Sondé prompted a backlash, with security forces briefly surging to the area. But that presence was not sustained, and Gran Grif has begun to reassert its control in recent months.

Meanwhile, the report documents a wave of reprisal killings, as vigilante groups answered the gang’s actions with violence of their own.

Around December 11, for instance, the UN noted that the gangs killed more than 70 people near the town of Petite-Riviere de l’Artibonite, and vigilante groups killed 67 people, many of them assumed to be relatives or romantic partners of local gang members.

Police units are also accused of committing 17 extrajudicial killings in that wave of violence, as they targeted suspected gang collaborators. The UN reports that new massacres have unfolded in the months since.

In the Centre department, a border region where gangs operate trafficking networks, similar acts of retaliation have been reported as the gangs and vigilante groups clash for control of the roads.

One instance the UN chronicles from March involved the police interception of a minibus driving from the city of Gonaives to Port-au-Prince. Officers allegedly found three firearms and 10,488 cartridges inside the bus, a fact which sparked concern and uproar among residents nearby.

“Enraged, members of the local population who witnessed the scene lynched to death, using stones, sticks, and machetes, two individuals: the driver and another man present in the vehicle,” the report said.

Haiti has been grappling with an intense period of gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021. Criminal networks have used the resulting power vacuum to expand their presence and power, seizing control of as much as 90 percent of the capital.

A transitional government council, meanwhile, has struggled to re-establish order amid controversies, tensions and leadership turnover. The council, however, has said it plans to hold its first presidential election in nearly a decade in 2026.

Meanwhile, Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, warned that civilians will continue to suffer as the cycle of violence continues.

“Caught in the middle of this unending horror story are the Haitian people, who are at the mercy of horrific violence by gangs and exposed to human rights violations from the security forces and abuses by the so-called ‘self-defence’ groups,” he said.