UN: Delaying help to combat Haiti’s gangs may impact region

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. special envoy for Haiti is urging immediate deployment of a specialized international force to counter escalating gang violence and develop the understaffed and ill-equipped police force, warning that delays could lead to a spillover of insecurity in the Caribbean and Latin America. But the United States and Canada again showed no interest in leading a force and neither did any other member of the U.N. Security Council. Maria Isabel Salvador said Wednesday that gang violence in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country is expanding at an alarming rate in areas previously considered safe inside and outside the capital. She cited police and U.N. figures showing criminal incidents more than doubled to 1,647 in the first quarter of 2023.