Last Chance? Breaking Haiti’s Political and Criminal Impasse

This brief is an output of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)’s Observatory of Violence and Resilience in Haiti. The Observatory of Violence and Resilience in Haiti serves as a forum for research and analysis, civil society empowerment, capacity building and support for multilateral actors. Access this 2025 brief here.

Summary:

In 2024, Haiti suffered a year of unprecedented violence as gangs tightened their grip on the country. Criminal groups now control 85% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and large swathes of the provinces. Over a million people are now internally displaced, a three-fold increase in one year. At least 5,601 murders were recorded during the year, an increase of more than 1 000 victims compared to 2023, equivalent to an annual homicide rate of almost 48 per 100 000 inhabitants, a national record.

The deployment in June 2024 of a Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission (henceforth MSS) has so far failed to help Haiti’s National Police (HNP) to tackle the gangs. The Haitian and Kenyan forces remain tactically and operationally overwhelmed by adversaries who have vastly increased their arsenals and territorial control.

Beyond the security dimension of the crisis, 2024 was marked by shifts in the gangs’ strategy. Three key developments stand out. Firstly, the gangs forged a criminal coalition known as Living Together (Viv Ansanm, in Haiti creole). Through this collaboration, the gangs consolidated their capacity for criminal governance, which they have enforced through extortion and the enactment of ever stricter rules over the daily life of Haitians. Finally, through their capacity for violence and by increasing their voice in public debate, criminal leaders are able to influence the course of the country’s political transition, to put pressure on Haitian authorities and the international community, and to become more embedded than ever in Haiti’s political and economic system.

The challenges posed by Haiti’s criminal groups are therefore greater than just their security threat. The country is now marked by not only militia-type practices and vigilantism, but also the gangs’ ability to shape the political sphere. The situation in Haiti in 2025 therefore presents a politico-criminal crisis in which gang leaders will seek to occupy a strategic space within the system, not replace it.

Faced with this grim outlook, national and international responses are proving feeble. On the security front, lack of international funding and political support for the MSS, and consequently for Haiti’s police, is preventing any progress. On the domestic political stage, the two-headed governance structure set up in April 2024, with the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) on one side and the government on the other, has become paralyzed by political infighting.

In 2024, institutional weaknesses and internal political wars opened up opportunities for the gangs to exploit. Criminal groups acted quickly and strategically, adapting to the context and putting pressure on the authorities. Institutional fragility thus feeds gang power, which, in turn, continues to weaken transition efforts, in a vicious circle from which no one seems to escape.

Against this backdrop, the United States and Haiti have asked the United Nations Security Council to transform the MSS into a peacekeeping operation. As we await the response, the situation is deteriorating. But whether an operation materializes or not, without a holistic response that draws on a better understanding of Haiti’s political economy of violence, and explicitly tackles the problem of impunity, corruption and collusion between gangs and their white-collar allies, any sort of mission will not turn the tide. It is illusory to think that security will improve without institutional and political solidity, and vice versa.

While Haitian people are subjected to unprecedented human rights violations, the pathway to resolving the crisis has reached an operational and conceptual impasse. This brief offers avenues of action for 2025. It begins by outlining how the gangs’ governance has developed alongside the inadequacy of the current public security strategy, before looking at the political challenges ahead for Haiti’s transition and the international community. To have a significant impact, the brief makes the case for a paradigm shift in the national and international response, which must take full account of the Haitian organized crime ecosystem. The challenge is immense, but the tools are at our disposal to forge joint action in the face of a criminal crisis that is unique on a global scale.

The methodology for this brief combines fieldwork observation and interviews conducted in Haiti, and desk research. The study also draws on previous research conducted by the GI-TOC in Haiti. All fieldwork activities were conducted by GI-TOC teams. To protect their security, the names of the participants are not given.

Contents:

• Summary
• The Viv Ansanm gang coalition: an alliance for parallel sovereignty
• Growing threat of vigilante groups
• From gang violence to criminal governance
  • Embedded actors, mafia-like rule
• Haitian politics: between paralysis and permanent conflict
  • The Multinational Security Support mission: between a rock and a hard place
• Mandate needed to tackle organized crime
• Conclusion and policy recommendations for 2025
  • Notes

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