Haiti: New Deadly Attack in Haitian Capital

The current situation in Haiti is “catastrophic,” explains Fr. Jean Gardy Maisonneuve, a Jesuit and director of the non-governmental organization St. Karl Lévêque, as quoted by the Haitian daily Le Nouvelliste on February 28, 2025.

Vatican News explains that “the first reports of the attack indicate the assassination of two soldiers of the armed forces, by the Viv Ansanm gang, led by former police officer Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier and others.”

This gang is the one that allegedly caused the fire at the general hospital in the Haitian capital in mid-February. According to Fr. Jean Gardy, the death toll from the attack in the Delmas 30 neighborhood is much higher, continues Vatican News.

Le Nouvelliste reports growing popular discontent with the government, accused of inability to manage the chronic security crisis. For the second consecutive day, demonstrations took place in front of the government headquarters in Port-au-Prince.

In January, gangs destroyed 47 schools in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, adding to the 284 schools destroyed in 2024, Geetanjali Narayan, UNICEF Representative in Haiti, said at a press conference in Geneva on 28 February. “The relentless attacks on education are accelerating, leaving hundreds of thousands of children without a place to learn,” she added.

The UN Children’s Fund has already reported a 1,000 per cent increase in sexual violence against children in the country between 2023 and 2024. Children also represent half of the one million people displaced by violence in Haiti to date, continuing to bear the brunt of the crisis.

The Dominican Republic, which shares a 340-km border with Haiti, issued a decree on February 27 classifying Haitian criminal gangs as “terrorist organizations.” Since 2021, the Dominican Republic has been constructing a separation wall along the 340-km border to combat irregular immigration and trafficking linked to criminal organizations.

Over the past month, gang violence has left more than 6,000 people homeless in the Port-au-Prince area, according to a UN statement released on February 25. “Entire families have been massacred in their homes, while others, including children and babies, have been shot dead as they tried to escape,” the UN said. 

Staggering Figures

The assassination of Haiti’s last elected president, Jovenel Moïse, in July 2021 plunged the Caribbean island nation into a whirlwind of violence of rare intensity. More than twenty armed gangs now rule over 85% of the country’s territory: some neighborhoods resemble real war zones.

According to the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), in 2024, more than 1,700 people were killed in violence perpetrated by gangs or during operations carried out by the police. Nearly 1,500 individuals were victims of kidnappings and more than a million civilians left their homes to escape the violence.