The In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights (IACHR) is ex­press­ing its “deep con­cern” at the alarm­ing de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in Haiti, which it said is char­ac­ter­ized by a new es­ca­la­tion of ex­treme vi­o­lence.

It said that the vi­o­lence per­pe­trat­ed by armed groups con­tin­ues to claim vic­tims and cause mas­sive pop­u­la­tion dis­place­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to IACHR, be­tween Jan­u­ary 27 and 30, more than 50 peo­ple were re­port­ed­ly killed in Ken­scoff by armed mem­bers of the Viv Ansanm crim­i­nal coali­tion.

The IACHR said it is al­so con­demn­ing the mur­der of a two-month-old ba­by on Feb­ru­ary 14 and the death of his moth­er, who suc­cumbed to the pain of the in­fant mur­der a day lat­er, ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to pub­lic in­for­ma­tion, in a rep­re­hen­si­ble act, the ba­by was al­leged­ly burned by mem­bers of crim­i­nal groups in the pres­ence of his moth­er, who was fa­tal­ly in­jured.

IACHR said that on the night of Feb­ru­ary 16-17,  a mas­sacre in the Château Blond and Pe­tit-Rou­peau sec­tors, on the Frères road, left at least 20 dead, in­clud­ing five mem­bers of the same fam­i­ly.

On Feb­ru­ary 12, in Mon­trouis, an at­tack against the Hait­ian Na­tion­al Po­lice (PNH) left four in­jured and one dead. Sim­i­lar­ly, on Feb­ru­ary 25, two Hait­ian Armed Forces sol­diers were killed in Del­mas 30, re­flect­ing the grow­ing threat fac­ing se­cu­ri­ty in­sti­tu­tions and the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion.

“These facts, in ad­di­tion to those pre­vi­ous­ly pre­sent­ed and re­port­ed by the IACHR, high­light the lethal ca­pac­i­ty of crim­i­nal gangs and the lack of ef­fec­tive re­spons­es to put an end to their ac­tions,”  said the IACHR, a prin­ci­pal and au­tonomous or­gan of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS), whose man­date de­rives from the OAS Char­ter and the Amer­i­can Con­ven­tion on Hu­man Rights.

It said the vi­o­lence in the coun­try se­ri­ous­ly threat­ens the lives and se­cu­ri­ty of the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion and re­flects the lack of state con­trol over these armed groups.

This con­text leads to the forced dis­place­ment of thou­sands of peo­ple due to the vi­o­lence. In less than a month, more than 6,000 peo­ple have been forced to flee their homes, ac­cord­ing to a UN re­port pub­lished last Feb­ru­ary.

“Haiti is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis of un­prece­dent­ed pro­por­tions, as re­lent­less at­tacks by armed groups con­tin­ue to flour­ish amid in­sti­tu­tion­al weak­ness. The IACHR re­it­er­ates its ur­gent call to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and the Hait­ian au­thor­i­ties to adopt im­me­di­ate and ef­fec­tive mea­sures to pro­tect the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion, strength­en the rule of law, and guar­an­tee the se­cu­ri­ty and fun­da­men­tal rights of the Hait­ian peo­ple.”

The IACHR said it is reaf­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti and to de­ploy­ing all its mech­a­nisms to col­lab­o­rate in the restora­tion of hu­man rights guar­an­tees in the coun­try.

WASH­ING­TON, Mar 14, CMC –

CMC/hj/ir/2025