Port-au-Prince is a city under siege. That’s not a metaphor anymore. If you look at a map of Haiti's capital, you aren't looking at neighborhoods or districts so much as a patchwork of territories held by different armed groups. Most people think of gang violence in Haiti as a series of random riots or isolated crimes, but honestly, it’s much more like a low-grade civil war where the front lines move every single day.
It’s messy. It’s loud. And for the millions of people living through it, it’s basically an endless exercise in survival.
Things shifted in early 2024. Before that, the gangs were mostly fighting each other for control of the ports or the kidnapping routes. Then, in a move that shocked pretty much every international observer, the two main rival coalitions—the G9 Family and Allies, led by former police officer Jimmy "Barbecue" Chérizier, and the G-Pèp—decided to stop killing each other and start attacking the state instead. They called this alliance Vivre Ensemble (Living Together). They broke thousands of prisoners out of the National Penitentiary. They shut down the Toussaint Louverture International Airport for months. They basically forced the Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, to resign while he was stuck in Puerto Rico.
This isn't just about "crime" in the way we think about it in New York or London. It’s about power. Total power.
Why Haiti Gang Violence Got This Bad So Fast
You can't talk about the current chaos without talking about the vacuum. When President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in his bedroom in July 2021, the remaining scaffolding of the Haitian government just... collapsed. There are currently no elected officials in the entire country. Not one. No president, no parliament, no mayors.
When there’s no state, someone else is going to step in. In Haiti, that was the gangs.
Experts like Diego Da Rin from the International Crisis Group have pointed out that these groups aren't just guys with guns; they are deeply enmeshed with the country's economic and political elite. For decades, politicians used gangs as private security or to suppress votes. Now, the monsters have outgrown their creators. They have better weapons than the police—AR-15s and sniper rifles smuggled in mostly from Florida—and they have more money thanks to control over the fuel terminals and the main roads that connect the capital to the rest of the country.
If you want to move a truck of rice from the port to the mountains, you pay a "tax" to the gang. If you don't, you don't pass. It's a protection racket at the scale of a whole nation.
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The Reality of Daily Life
Imagine waking up and checking a WhatsApp group to see which streets are "green" and which are "red." That is daily life in Port-au-Prince. You don't just go to the grocery store. You wait for a lull in the gunfire. You avoid the snipers perched on the roofs in Delmas.
The humanitarian toll is staggering. The UN Human Rights Office reported that over 8,000 people were killed, injured, or kidnapped in 2023 alone, and 2024 has been even bloodier. But the numbers don't capture the weird, quiet terror of it. It's the way mothers keep their kids under the bed when the "automatic music" (gunfire) starts. It's the fact that more than half a million people have been burned out of their homes and are now sleeping in crowded schools or makeshift camps with zero sanitation.
Sexual violence is being used as a systematic tool of control. It's horrific. Human Rights Watch has documented cases where gangs use rape to punish neighborhoods that they perceive as being "loyal" to a rival group. It's a strategy of total communal degradation.
The International Response: The Kenya-Led Mission
For a long time, the world just watched. Then came the MSS—the Multinational Security Support mission.
Led by Kenya, this isn't a UN peacekeeping force in the traditional sense, though the UN authorized it. The first few hundred Kenyan police officers landed in June 2024, wearing camouflage and carrying submachine guns. People were hopeful. Some still are. But the scale of the gang violence in Haiti is so massive that a few hundred, or even a few thousand, foreign police officers might not be enough to tilt the scales.
- The gangs have had years to dig in.
- They know the labyrinthine slums like Cité Soleil better than any foreigner ever could.
- They are hiding among civilians, making traditional urban combat nearly impossible without massive collateral damage.
Jimmy Chérizier has been very vocal about this. He’s framed the Kenyan mission as an "invading force" and told his followers to prepare for a long war. Whether he’s a "revolutionary" like he claims or just a warlord protecting his turf depends entirely on who you ask, but one thing is certain: he has enough firepower to make the mission's life a living hell.
The Money Problem
Here is the thing no one likes to talk about: the gangs are a business.
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They make millions from kidnapping. They snatch doctors, students, even street vendors. They don't care. If your family can scrape together $500, they'll take it. If they can get $50,000, even better. This money buys more guns, which buys more territory, which leads to more kidnapping. It’s a closed loop of misery.
Sanctions from the U.S. and Canada have targeted some of the "godfathers"—the wealthy businessmen and politicians who fund these groups—but the flow of money is hard to stop. Haiti’s economy is almost entirely cash-based and informal. You can’t exactly "freeze" a suitcase full of gourdes being handed over in a dark alley in Pétion-Ville.
The Misconception of "Chaos"
We often see news clips of burning tires and think the whole country is just a blur of mindless violence. It's not. It's actually very organized.
The gangs have hierarchies. They have PR arms. They use TikTok to recruit kids and show off their wealth. When they coordinated the attacks on the National Palace and the police stations in early 2024, it wasn't a "mob." It was a synchronized military operation. They used drones to scout police positions. They used heavy machinery to tear down police station walls.
This level of sophistication is why the Haitian National Police (PNH) struggled so much. The PNH has some incredibly brave officers, but they are outgunned and underpaid. Sometimes their paychecks don't even show up. It’s hard to stay loyal to a state that can’t even buy you bullets when the gang leader down the street is offering you a motorcycle and a steady salary.
Where Does This End?
Haiti is currently governed by a Transitional Presidential Council (TPC). Their job is basically impossible: restore security and hold an election by February 2026.
How do you hold an election when 80% of the capital is controlled by people who profit from there being no government? You can't put a polling station in a neighborhood where the gang leader has a bounty on the head of any government official.
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There's also the massive issue of the internal refugees. If you've fled your home in Artibonite because your farm was seized by the "Gran Grif" gang, where do you vote? How do you even prove who you are if your house was burned down with your ID inside?
Practical Steps and Real-World Impact
If you’re watching this from the outside and wondering what can actually be done, the focus has shifted from "sending food" to "stopping guns."
- Interdicting the Arms Flow: Most of the guns fueling gang violence in Haiti come from the United States. Strengthening inspections at Florida ports is one of the few ways to actually starve the gangs of their primary tool.
- Targeted Sanctions: These need to go deeper. It’s not just the big-name politicians; it’s the mid-level logistics people who facilitate the fuel and food monopolies.
- Supporting Local Civil Society: Despite the violence, Haitian doctors, teachers, and community leaders are still working. Groups like Mouvman Fanm Ayisyen nan Aksyon (MOFA) and others are on the front lines. They need direct support that bypasses the broken state bureaucracy.
Ultimately, the violence won't end just because the Kenyans are there. It will end when the "social contract" in Haiti is rebuilt. When a young man in Bel-Air has a better chance of a life by going to school or starting a small business than by picking up a Galil for a gang leader, that’s when the guns will go quiet.
Until then, the people of Haiti are stuck in a waiting game. They are waiting for the security mission to prove it can actually hold territory. They are waiting for the transitional government to show it can provide even the most basic services. And mostly, they are just waiting for the next day of peace, however brief it might be.
The situation is incredibly fluid. One week the airport is open; the next, it's under fire. One week a neighborhood is "liberated," and the next, the police have to retreat because they ran out of gas. It’s a reminder that stability isn't a given—it's something that has to be built, brick by brick, in a place where the bricks have been systematically kicked over for years.
Actionable Insights for Following the Situation:
Keep an eye on the Port-au-Prince port operations. If the gangs lose control of the maritime routes, their funding takes a massive hit. Watch the relationship between the TPC and the Kenyan police; any friction there usually leads to a surge in gang activity as they exploit the gap. Finally, look at the "inflation of kidnapping"—when the prices go down, it often means the gangs are getting desperate for liquidity, which can lead to even more erratic and dangerous behavior in the streets.