The Haiti Intervention Has Failed: A Nation Descends Into Civil War

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Video originally published on November 11, 2024.

Eight years after Time magazine's infamous 'Venezuela is Dying' cover exposed Latin America's worst crisis, another nation in the region faces collapse—but this time, the world isn't watching. Haiti is experiencing what observers now characterize as a civil war, with gang violence reaching unprecedented levels despite an international intervention that has failed to materialize as promised. With over 5,000 killed in nine months, 700,000 displaced, and half the population facing acute hunger, the Caribbean nation's descent into chaos represents a catastrophe on par with active warzones—yet it unfolds just 1,000 kilometers from American shores, largely ignored by international media.

Key Takeaways

Haiti's security crisis has escalated to civil war levels, with 1,223 people killed between July and September alone—a 30 percent increase from the previous quarter

The Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission has deployed only 416 of the promised 2,500 personnel, rendering it largely ineffective against gang coalitions that control much of the country

Over 700,000 Haitians have been displaced from their homes, with more than a fifth forced into exile in just three months

The UN World Food Program has designated Haiti as one of five global hunger hotspots, with over half the population suffering acute hunger and two million facing emergency-level food insecurity

Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council has requested the UN upgrade the mission to a full peacekeeping operation, but Security Council vetoes from Russia and China make approval unlikely

The crisis stems not only from gang violence but from fundamental governance failure, with Haiti's political elites engaged in power struggles rather than addressing institutional collapse

A Crisis Ignored: Haiti's Invisible Catastrophe

Unlike Venezuela's economic collapse under dictatorship that captured global attention in 2016, Haiti's disintegration occurs not from overbearing government but from the complete absence of central authority. The nation faces what the Guardian has termed 'effectively a civil war'—an apocalyptic free-for-all where nearly every institution holding the state together has shattered. Yet this crisis receives minimal international coverage despite unfolding on America's doorstep.

The scale of violence has reached staggering proportions. According to United Nations data, 1,223 people were killed and 522 injured by gangs between July and September alone, representing a 30 percent increase over the previous quarter. By early October, approximately 5,000 people had been murdered in Haiti during 2024. To contextualize these figures: Georgia, a U.S. state with a population similar to Haiti's, recorded only 728 homicides across all of 2023. In just nine months, Haiti experienced over six-and-a-half times as many killings as Georgia saw in an entire year.

Beyond homicides, Haiti suffers a mass displacement crisis. Armed groups have driven over 700,000 people from their homes, with more than a fifth—over 140,000 individuals—forced into exile in just the last three months. Hundreds more have been kidnapped, held for ransom or worse by gang coalitions that operate with near-impunity across much of the country.

Humanitarian Catastrophe: Hunger and Healthcare Collapse

Gang control of key transportation routes has severed cities from supply lines, creating cascading humanitarian disasters. In Port-au-Prince, the capital, only 20 percent of health facilities remain functional. Nationwide, over half of all hospitals are out of commission—a catastrophic situation when the population simultaneously faces acute food insecurity.

The UN World Food Program recently identified five global 'hunger hotspots' where civilians face imminent starvation risk in coming months. Three of these—Sudan, Mali, and Gaza—are active warzones. The fourth, South Sudan, is a hyper-fragile state confronting economic crisis and apocalyptic flooding. The fifth is Haiti.

Currently, over half of Haiti's population suffers from acute hunger. The World Food Program classifies an additional two million people as 'facing emergency levels' of food insecurity. Thousands are believed to be on the brink of famine. This food crisis stems directly from gang control: armed groups dominate the roads connecting agricultural regions to urban centers, effectively holding entire populations hostage and preventing the distribution of supplies even when they exist.

The Failed Intervention: Why the MSS Cannot Succeed

The Multinational Security Support Mission, authorized by the United Nations and led by Kenya, was supposed to reverse Haiti's downward spiral. Instead, it has achieved what Crisis Group analyst Diego Da Rin characterized as 'very limited impact.' The fundamental problem is simple: the deployment never materialized as planned.

Of the 2,500 personnel earmarked for the mission, only 416 have actually been deployed to Haiti—less than one-fifth of the intended force. Even these deployed officers face crippling equipment and funding shortages. Crisis Group reports that armored vehicles supplied to the operation are too wide to navigate Port-au-Prince's narrow alleyways, rendering them useless in the urban terrain where gangs operate. Kenya's government claims that only $400 million of the promised $600 million in funding has materialized, and Nairobi flatly refuses to send additional officers without the remaining cash.

The mission did achieve initial success. When the first batch of officers arrived from Kenya and Jamaica, violence in Haiti noticeably decreased. Former no-go areas in Port-au-Prince became occasionally accessible. This temporary improvement likely resulted from fear among gang members—despite collective membership estimated between 5,500 and 12,000, the vast majority are extremely young, with the UN estimating that child soldiers may constitute approximately fifty percent of their ranks.

The prospect of confronting 2,500 well-armed, highly trained police officers initially terrified these groups. However, as time passed and the MSS remained at resolutely low staffing levels, that fear evaporated. A Haitian police officer told the Guardian that gangs had briefly paused attacks after the foreign force arrived four months earlier, but 'having seen how few troops arrived they had resumed their offensive.'

The operational challenge is immense: barely 400 personnel attempting to control violence in a city of 1.2 million, largely under armed group control, where attackers can vanish into winding, unmapped alleyways and blend with the civilian population. This impossibility has emboldened Haiti's armed groups to become increasingly blatant in their operations.

Escalating Brutality: From Gang Violence to Civil War

Recent attacks demonstrate how Haiti's crisis has evolved beyond conventional gang violence into something resembling civil conflict. The Viv Ansanm gang coalition's invasion of the Solino neighborhood exemplifies this escalation. Attacking on motorbikes and wielding Kalashnikovs, the assault resembled reports from southern Israel on October 7th rather than typical gang violence. Homes were burned with people inside. Up to ten thousand residents were forced to flee on foot. Despite the carnage unfolding in Port-au-Prince—the seat of government and base of the MSS—the security mission failed to save the neighborhood.

Outside the capital, where security forces are even thinner, conditions deteriorate further. Attacks have crept into regions surrounding Haiti's main city in recent months. The New York Times reports that a gang coalition essentially holds all three million people living on the southern Tiburon Peninsula hostage. The important agricultural region of Artibonite has been hit with massacres.

The October assault on Pont-Sonde, a small town that refused to pay extortion demands, proved so severe it briefly pierced international indifference. The Gran Grif gang's invasion unfolded with cold brutality: babies, elderly women, and entire families were among nearly 100 dead. While the death toll was high even by Haitian standards, the tragedy is that such cruelty has become woven into Haiti's civil war.

A recent UN report documents the extreme nature of violence now routine in Haiti. In one incident, a Haitian plainclothes policeman captured by an armed group 'was mutilated, then forced to eat parts of his body, before being burned alive.' The report also addresses vigilante groups that have formed in response to gang violence. These groups, thought to have lynched 122 suspected gang members over three months, have become infamous for copying their opponents' tactics. Victims 'were mutilated with machetes, stoned, decapitated, burned alive or buried alive.' The report notes that 'children were not spared.'

This documentation serves not to sensationalize but to convey how the current violence transcends Haiti's historical instability. While the country has suffered rampant instability for decades, the current violence exists on another level entirely—one beyond even what occurs in all but the worst warzones.

The UN Peacekeeping Question: A Desperate Proposal

In late October, Leslie Voltaire, leader of Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council, asked the UN to upgrade the MSS into an official UN peacekeeping mission. The significance of this request cannot be overstated. According to the Miami Herald, Voltaire belongs to a party that has 'long derided foreign intervention in Haiti.' That he now requests the UN send a full military force to his nation reflects the desperation of Haiti's situation.

A UN peacekeeping mission could address several critical problems plaguing the current intervention. Most importantly, blue helmet deployments have their own budget drawn from obligatory UN member payments, meaning an official peacekeeping force wouldn't face the same financial constraints as the Kenyan-led MSS. Currently, the MSS is largely bankrolled by the United States, with additional contributions from France, Canada, and Spain. With the Republican Party's recent election victory, continued Washington funding for Haitian policing operations appears unlikely for the long term.

Manpower represents another advantage. Multiple nations maintain pools of specialists available to the UN for authorized missions, ranging from regular soldiers to engineering corps. Whereas the MSS has struggled to reach even a fifth of its intended size, a full UN deployment could bring thousands of personnel within months.

However, a UN deployment faces severe political obstacles. The UN remains deeply unpopular in Haiti. During its last deployment, UN troops accidentally imported cholera, leading to an outbreak that killed approximately 10,000 people. Even if ordinary Haitians might choose disgraced peacekeepers over sustained gang violence, the Security Council is unlikely to authorize deployment. Both Russia and China have threatened to veto any such proposal, making the chances of Voltaire obtaining his requested deployment exceedingly slim.

The Governance Crisis: Elite Failure Perpetuates Chaos

International organizations cannot bear sole blame for Haiti's crisis. As previous analyses have established, the heart of Haiti's current catastrophe is a political deadlock between rapacious elites who have long refused to hold elections or prioritize rebuilding national institutions over petty squabbling.

The Transitional Presidential Council, established to resolve this deadlock, has instead fallen into the exact same trap. Rather than working together to benefit Haiti, Council members have attempted to amass power and initiated conflicts with the country's interim prime minister. Others face accusations of corruption and using their posts for personal enrichment. As one interviewee told the New York Times: 'Haiti's crisis is a crisis of governance overlaid with insecurity. And so you can't end the insecurity unless you address the governance.'

This governance failure creates a vicious cycle. Without functional political institutions, security forces cannot be properly organized, funded, or directed. Without security, political institutions cannot function or rebuild. Meanwhile, as Haiti's elites engage in power struggles, the nation burns. A gang violence problem that became an insurgency now blossoms into civil war, with ordinary Haitians paying the price.

Regional Implications: A Crisis the World Cannot Ignore

Haiti's location makes its instability a problem the international community cannot afford to continue ignoring. The nation lies only a short distance from mainland America and only 600 kilometers from Puerto Rico. Should instability continue growing, Haiti will likely export its chaos across the waves. Already, some gangs are turning to piracy and attacking ships at sea, suggesting how the crisis might metastasize.

The challenge is that serious decisions must be taken, yet no clear path forward exists. The MSS has proven inadequate with its current resources and mandate. A full UN peacekeeping mission faces Security Council vetoes. Haiti's political elites show no signs of prioritizing national reconstruction over personal power. International attention remains minimal despite the scale of suffering.

Until the UN or some willing nation steps up with adequate resources and commitment, conditions will continue deteriorating. This means the problem will only become harder to solve when action is finally taken. Haiti represents a test case for international crisis response—one the world is currently failing. The question is not whether Haiti's crisis will demand a response, but whether that response will come before the situation becomes irretrievable.

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FAQ

How many people have been killed in Haiti's violence in 2024?

Approximately 5,000 people had been murdered in Haiti by early October 2024. Between July and September alone, 1,223 people were killed and 522 injured by gangs—a 30 percent increase over the previous quarter.

Why has the Multinational Security Support Mission failed to stop the violence?

The MSS has failed primarily because only 416 of the promised 2,500 personnel have been deployed—less than one-fifth of the intended force. The deployed officers face equipment shortages, with armored vehicles too wide to navigate Port-au-Prince's narrow alleyways, and funding gaps, with only $400 million of the promised $600 million materialized.

How severe is Haiti's humanitarian crisis?

Over half of Haiti's population suffers from acute hunger, with two million people facing emergency levels of food insecurity. Only 20 percent of health facilities in Port-au-Prince remain functional, and over half of all hospitals nationwide are out of commission. Gang control of transportation routes has severed supply lines, creating cascading humanitarian disasters.

What is the Transitional Presidential Council requesting from the UN?

Leslie Voltaire, leader of Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council, has asked the UN to upgrade the MSS into an official UN peacekeeping mission. This would provide dedicated budget funding and access to thousands of personnel from multiple nations, but faces likely vetoes from Russia and China in the Security Council.

Why is Haiti's crisis considered a governance failure?

Haiti's political elites have refused to hold elections or prioritize rebuilding national institutions over power struggles. The Transitional Presidential Council, established to resolve the deadlock, has fallen into the same trap, with members attempting to amass power, fighting with the interim prime minister, and facing accusations of corruption rather than addressing the security crisis.

How many people have been displaced by the violence?

Over 700,000 Haitians have been driven from their homes by armed groups, with more than 140,000 people—over a fifth—forced into exile in just the last three months of the reporting period.

What makes Haiti's violence comparable to a civil war?

The violence has escalated beyond conventional gang activity to resemble civil conflict, with coordinated attacks on neighborhoods involving motorbikes and Kalashnikovs, homes burned with people inside, mass displacement of thousands, and extreme brutality including mutilation, burning victims alive, and massacres of entire families. The UN has documented violence levels comparable to active warzones.

Why did the MSS initially reduce violence but then lose effectiveness?

When the first batch of officers arrived from Kenya and Jamaica, violence noticeably decreased because gang members—many of whom are children, with the UN estimating child soldiers constitute approximately 50 percent of gang ranks—feared confronting well-armed, trained police. However, when gangs realized only 416 troops arrived instead of 2,500, that fear evaporated and they resumed their offensive.

Sources

About the Author

Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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