PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – Children in Haiti — among the poorest countries in the world and a transit port for cocaine en route to the U.S. — desperately need the new prime minister to succeed.
United Nations advocates reported about three million children need humanitarian assistance, and those displaced ”face heightened risks of violence including sexual assault, exploitation, abuse, and family separation.”
Advocates with Saving The Children, a nongovernmental organization, warned that “more than one million children are living in areas under the influence of armed groups” and reported that “hunger is forcing children in Haiti to join violent gang groups.”
Interim Prime Minister Garry Conille, a gynecologist by training educated in the U.S. with experience as a former prime minister of Haiti and as a veteran international aid officer, has been in power for two months and 15 days.
“Most of the country is functioning, and within the capital, we are able to send kids to school,” Conille told BBC on Aug. 7.
During a meeting in July in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Conille, 58, counts on the “strong support” of the U.S. and Kenya as the leader of the UN-backed multinational security support mission in Haiti.
“We think the next few weeks and months will be quite interesting, but we’re confident with the establishment of the presidential council, the establishment of this new government, we’re going to be able to take on these challenges straight on,” Conille said during the meeting.
Shortly after, The New York Times reported a presidential transitional council appointed Conille to “one of the toughest jobs of any leader in the Western Hemisphere” as “an outsider unstained by Haiti’s notoriously dirty politics and chronic corruption.”
Conille, the successor of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, described the security challenge to the U.S. listeners of National Public Radio’s Morning Edition: “At the end of the day, this is 12,000 thugs that are holding 12 million people hostage.”
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported the illegal arms trade had delivered everything from Russian AK-47s and U.S.-made AR-15s to Israeli Galil assault rifles. The U.S. Southern Command has provided support to law enforcement.
During a meeting in June at Notre Dame d’Haiti Catholic Church in Miami’s Little Haiti, Conille’s description of the gangs deeply concerned U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson and the local Haitian-American leaders in attendance.
“We talked about prevention; we were surprised to find out that 50% to 70% of the gang members are little boys,” Wilson told Local 10 News. “These are not grown men as we see.”
Rev. Baudelaire Martial, a Catholic priest in Port-au-Prince told Church In Need in July that the church has had to pay ransoms for kidnappings, the cathedral was in a conflict zone, and a 12-year-old girl was killed at a church’s social center.
Lionel Constant Bourgoin, a prosecutor in Port-au-Prince, talked to Le Monde on Saturday about the powerless justice system that is trying to work with the law enforcement response of the UN-backed forces working with the Haitian National Police.
“Our public prosecutor’s office is in shambles,” Bourgoin told Le Monde. “The gangs have driven the magistrates out of their courts.”
Haiti has not had sitting elected officials since January 2023. Conille has said there is a political consensus to make it safe to have elections in 2026.
TIMELINE
- Jan. 12, 2010: A 7.0 magnitude earthquake killed over 300,000 people.
- 2020: Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, a former police officer, co-founded The Revolutionary Forces of the G9, a federation of gangs.
- July 7, 2021: President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in Petion-Ville.
- Aug. 14, 2021: A 7.2 magnitude earthquake killed over 2,000 people.
- Nov. 4, 2022: U.S. sanctions Joseph Lambert, the president of the Haitian Senate, accusing him of corruption.
- Nov. 7, 2022: U.S. announces $1 million reward each for information leading to the arrests of three gang members Joseph Wilson, Jermaine Stephenson, and Vitel’Homme Innocent.
- Dec. 3, 2022: U.S. sanctions Rony Celestin, a Haitian senator, and Richard Fourcand, a former Haitian senator, accusing them of narco-trafficking.
- July 27, 2023: The U.S. State Department orders relatives of U.S. government employees and non-emergency U.S. government employees to leave Haiti.
- Feb. 29: There was a significant escalation of gang violence after protests against Henry
- April 25: Henry submits his resignation and a 9-member transitional presidential council assumes control.
- June 3: Conille is officially sworn in as prime minister
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