Who can protect Haiti? (2024)

Deep inside gang territory in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, sits a giant, ramshackle, open-air encampment where destitution and fear permeate everything.

Here, Haitians forced from their homes by the gangs’ brutal violence live in sorrow and squalor in half-torn tents and plywood shacks. Badly undernourished children and their families pass their days desperate for their former lives, to which they cannot return.

Off to one side, a young mother named Jacqueline Laurencier says she fled her home after gangs killed two of her siblings. She’s lived in the camp for weeks; others have been here for months.

“I have five children with me," Laurencier said. "I don't even have a tent. I sleep in the open air with my kids."

There is a tiny degree of security in the camp, but there is very little food or clean water. Sanitation is an afterthought. The place is filthy and noisy. And there is no real freedom. To step beyond the walls at any time is to put one’s life at risk. Because outside, the gangs rule the streets.

Mélanie Louismose, who is 68, is nursing a broken leg and suffering severe diarrhea. "We can't go back home," she said. "We are in poverty … We have so many problems I don't know [what to do]. The hunger almost kills you."

Countless people in Haiti’s capital share this fate. Most estimates suggest there are roughly 200 paramilitary street gangs operating across Haiti, half of them in Port-au-Prince, a densely packed area of more than a million people, and now a capital in name only.

Despite a newly appointed prime minister, Haiti remains a place with no real or functioning national government. Gangs not only control most neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince but all of the access roads in and out of the city, and its shipping port, the country’s largest.

All of that has made food beyond scarce almost everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians now live on the brink of famine, as the gangs’ unending, ruthless kidnappings, rapes and killings continue. In May, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Haiti as being "on the precipice of becoming an all-out failed state." Few here would challenge him on that.

Haiti’s challenges have been mounting for decades. Long beset by corruption, poverty, disease and natural disasters, the latest spike in violence has again captured the world’s attention. A multinational police force, led by Kenya, aimed at helping restore order has been planned for months. But in May, the force's deployment was further delayed when Kenyan officials deemed Haiti’s resources alarmingly inadequate.

One reason? Not enough helicopters for medical evacuations.

The arrival of the forces, expected to eventually number some 2,500 police officers, has now been put off until later in June at the earliest.

Among some Haitians, there is apprehension over the coming forces — whenever they get here.

“I don’t know whether they’re coming for change, or will make things worse,” said one man in Ouanaminthe, in northeastern Haiti. Not far from where he stood, Creole graffiti sprayed onto a streetside wall read: “We don’t want Kenya in Haiti.”

Said another man, further north in Cap-Haitien, “I want the world to let Haitians find the way to help Haiti.”

The gangs’ dominance has grown over a span of decades, fuelled by seemingly endemic corruption in Haiti’s national leadership and a broad lack of effective policing. Over time, various politicians co-opted gang members to help gain power. It was a strong-arm tactic that worked, until it didn’t — backfiring when the gangs realized they had more firepower than the authorities.

Haiti has been the site of numerous coups and political assassinations, most recently of president Jovenel Moïse in 2021. Periodic attempts by outside countries — notably the U.S. — to step in and re-organize the country often ended with little evidence of having done any good. Indeed, at different times, foreign forces in Haiti have been accused of sexual abuse and murder. All of which has led many Haitians to deeply mistrust outside help.

It’s also led the U.S. and other countries to become wary of sending their forces into Haiti. The U.S., Canada, the United Nations and others are supporting the latest foreign forces, but Kenya will supply most of the officers, alongside those from several smaller African and Caribbean nations.

They will no doubt meet many locals who question their presence. But it’s also clear a great number of Haitians recognize the country’s own forces are failing badly. In Port-au-Prince, the police are outgunned and outnumbered by the paramilitary gangs who, on top of all else, specifically target uniformed officers.

“We need to admit that our police force that we have now isn’t competent enough to overcome the gangs,” one man in Cap-Haitien said.

"We don't have the means to [fix this country] ourselves," said another.

When CBC News travelled to Haiti in early May, Cap-Haitien, on the island’s north coast, was the only possible point of entry. The gangs have yet to gain a foothold there. To keep it that way, Cap-Haitien police constantly conduct spot checks with random drivers on city streets, inspecting vehicle ownership papers and ID cards.

But the absence of any real national government plays out in Cap-Haitien as it does throughout the country: with no one in charge, the local economy is a wreck and the poverty on display is at times overwhelming.

At an open-air market along the city's waterfront were dregs of food — mostly imported from neighbouring Dominican Republic — including raw chicken meat, speckled with flies, spread out on a blanket in 30 C heat. Trays of eggs sat nearby. The food shared space with endless trash, sloppy muck and various dry goods for sale, including mountains of random clothing (donated from abroad).

In one spot was a small collection of very old, dirt-encrusted and broken-looking Nokia cellphones and BlackBerrys laid out loosely on the sidewalk; it was quite clear they will never again be in working condition. We were told the woman sitting with them never makes a sale but brings out the collection every day anyway, because like everyone else at the market, she believes it's better than sitting at home doing nothing.

A couple of blocks away at a city square, we were confronted with frustration bordering on anger. While doing random interviews with various people for their thoughts on the gangs, we were approached by a man named Gregory Rene, who very much wanted to speak. He reached over, shook my hand and told me what he wanted the world to know about Haiti.

WATCH | Man in Cap-Haitien explains what Haitians need most:

"We need jobs!" said Rene. "We need hospitals! We need education! We need to live like human beings! We need to live like people!" he said, practically shouting.

"We are not living. We live like animals."

To get into Port-au-Prince, CBC had to take an aging Sikorsky helicopter once stationed in Afghanistan and now used by the United Nations World Food Program in Haiti, a giant, pale blue "WFP" emblazoned on its belly. With gangs controlling all roads into the capital, there was no other feasible — or safe — way in.

The noisy, rattling hour-long flight ended on a sandy ad hoc landing pad in the hills of the Juvenat neighbourhood of greater Port-au-Prince. We were specifically directed not to take photos of the landing pad nor broadcast details of its location, out of concern security staff could later be identified by gang members.

As soon as we landed, we heard gunshots. A handful of well-armed security forces waiting on the pad immediately directed us into armoured vehicles for a short trip to the hotel where we would stay. En route, we passed more guards, their handguns drawn and aimed streetward.

Our hotel was one of the few places in the city still accessible to outsiders. (It's now used exclusively by aid workers and, in our case, those allowed in by the United Nations.) It sits in one of two small districts deemed at slightly less risk of gang violence than everywhere else.

Even so, when we pulled up, the front gates were closed and locked. Armed guards — stationed at all entryways — allowed us in. We were advised never to step out onto the street without security. Armoured vehicles were mandatory for travel anywhere, anytime. Into the evening, more gunshots were heard just outside the property.

Canada's embassy in Haiti is on Delmas Road, one of the city's busiest thoroughfares. It remains open for business, but now operates with significantly reduced staff. On our arrival, we asked if it was OK to briefly step outside the front gate to record some visuals of the embassy from the sidewalk. Security staff accompanied us as we did so. We noticed Canadian Forces soldiers positioned above us on the rooftop, guns out. Standard procedure nowadays, we were told.

Although we were allowed out onto the sidewalk, Canada's new ambassador to Haiti, André François Giroux, was not. Due to the gangs, he is required to always stay inside the gates of the compound, unless in an armoured vehicle.

Giroux is well aware of the dangers and complexities in Port-au-Prince, but is remarkably optimistic that the coming multinational force will lead to change.

In just the few weeks since the resignation of Haiti’s acting prime minister, the widely reviled Ariel Henry, and the formation of what's known as a transitional council aimed at working toward reconstituting a government, Giroux said he’d seen Port-au-Prince become "a much calmer city."

But he added, "When I say it's calm, it's a Port-au-Prince calm. It is still and will be for years to come … a very insecure city."

Giroux underlined Canada’s role in helping plan the multinational mission, including training some of the forces from countries that will work alongside the Kenyans. In a nod to Haitians who worry the coming force represents another unwanted foreign intervention, he emphasized the force's mandate is strictly to support Haitian police in their fight against the gangs — not to lead, but to help.

Giroux is hopeful, but also acknowledges the mission’s inherent uncertainty. He believes the police will be able to push the gangs away, but “how will [the gangs] react? Will they fight back? Will they retreat into hiding? We'll just have to wait and see."

I asked him: what if the multinational force fails? What if it doesn't work?

"It's going to work," he said.

The naming of Gary Conille as interim prime minister in late May has raised hopes among some that with or without the foreign forces, Haiti is taking steps forward. Conille served briefly as prime minister once before, in 2011/12, but more recently worked as a civil servant under the United Nations.

The U.S. welcomed the selection of Conille, after having pulled back its support of acting prime minister Ariel Henry over his failure to control Haiti’s street gangs. Conille’s enormous challenge now is to reconstitute a government and find a way to end the country’s spiral into chaos.

Meanwhile, myriad aid organizations continue to try to help those Haitians whose lives have been upended by the relentless violence.

In Haiti, the World Food Program is led by Jean-Martin Bauer, an American of Haitian descent. Under his guidance, the WFP here delivers thousands of hot meals a day, almost always to places well inside gang territory. In 2023 alone, the WFP says it came to the direct aid of roughly two million Haitians.

“It is dangerous,” Bauer said, but underlined that his team — which consists mostly of locals — strives to deliver the food “with dignity and safety. These are things we don’t compromise on.”

WATCH | The UN's Jean-Martin Bauer talks about food deliveries in Port-au-Prince:

CBC followed Bauer on one such delivery in a small convoy of vehicles headed for the Tabarre district of Port-au-Prince, now controlled by one of Haiti's most notorious gang leaders, Vitel’Homme Innocent. He’s currently on the FBI's 10-most-wanted list. We'd been told in a WFP security briefing to be on a constant watch for guns and to alert the rest of the convoy if anything seemed amiss.

As we wound our way through the city, we passed street after street that had been partly blocked off by Haitians using overturned vehicles or freshly constructed iron gates — some reinforced with sandbags — as barricades aimed at keeping the gangs out. Most streets are left open in daylight, but closed off after dark.

It's clear no one here believes Haiti's police can protect them.

Eventually, our convoy pulled into the encampment for Haitians displaced by the gangs. When the hot meals were brought out, a crowd of children immediately lined up for them, eagerly but politely. The food was taken and promptly devoured. Adults then followed.

When it was her turn, a 70-year-old woman named Eugénie Pierre-Charles, who has lived in the camp since last July, exclaimed, “My food has arrived! Hunger won’t kill me now. God bless.”

Bauer said the humanitarian crisis in Haiti right now is the worst since the 2010 earthquake, which left half a million Haitians dead or injured and 1.3 million homeless. Countless people were forced into makeshift tented communities with scarce food, water or medicine. Into this grew disease and crime. It left Haiti immeasurably scarred.

"It's that bad [again]," said Bauer.

All of this is happening in a country that shares an island with a place of broad and fast-growing success: the Dominican Republic. It currently boasts the largest economy in the Caribbean. By comparison, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

WATCH | Jean-Martin Bauer talks about the larger struggles in Haiti:

In the Dominican Republic, there is little empathy for its western neighbour, especially now. Last year, it closed its border to almost all Haitians and is constructing an imposing border wall of concrete and barbed wire complete with watchtowers, all aimed at forcibly blocking Haitian migrants. When we went to the border, we saw well-armed Dominican soldiers standing guard facing Haiti at one of the gaps in the still-incomplete wall.

During the recent presidential election campaign in the Dominican Republic, the incumbent, Luis Abinader, made finishing the wall and deporting Haitians already in the D.R. key pledges in his platform. He won in a landslide.

Bauer applauds the coming multinational forces, but emphasizes the needs in Haiti go well beyond restoring order.

“Security alone, boots on the ground alone, will not resolve this problem,” he said. “We need to also have a robust humanitarian response … There are five million people in Haiti that are acutely food insecure right now … and we [as a society] are not doing enough to respond to it.”

While stepping back into his convoy to go to the next encampment in Port-au-Prince, he spoke of the Haitians he encounters every day.

“I’m frustrated to see all these very good people in such bad situations,” he said. “I know this country. It’s in desperate straits, but it’s also a country of history, of deep culture, of life, music and painting.

“The Haitian people deserve better. It is heartbreaking.”

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