Haiti’s trajectory since its 1804 independence has been shaped by external economic pressures, recurrent coups, authoritarian rule and foreign interventions, which weakened institutions and fostered coercive governance. Democratic openings repeatedly reversed and were compounded by major natural disasters that further degraded public services. Since 2011, stalled reconstruction, corruption allegations, and contested elections contributed to State erosion, culminating after the 2021 assassination of President Moise in expanded areas under gang control, poverty, and mass internal displacement. From 2022, international missions, renewed sanctions, and a transitional presidential council sought to stabilize the situation, while new gang coalitions carried out massacres and openly challenged State authority. Through 2025 and 2026, political transition, election preparations, and the transformation of the international security mission all continued to falter, prompting emergency measures, intensified security operations including a state of maximal emergency, and continued civilian self-defence mobilization, amid further UN, US and EU sanctions on gang leaders and the coalition itself.
Classification(s) and Parties to the Conflict(s)
- Non-International Armed Conflict between Haiti and Viv Ansanm
Gang violence in Haiti, targeting authorities and civilians and particularly associated with the Viv Ansanm coalition and the Gran Grif gang, has been marked by mass killings and widespread shootings and stabbings used to enforce dominance. Large-scale assaults on homes and residential areas, with arson, looting, abductions of women and girls and executions, have depopulated neighbourhoods and displaced almost 1.3 million people within the country. Viv Ansanm blockades and attacks on ports, airports, roads, markets, schools, health facilities, and media outlets have destroyed essential infrastructure, weaponized hunger, and economic deprivation, severely curtailing access to education and medical care. Children have faced physical and sexual abuse, recruitment and exploitation from gangs, with girls coerced into sexual abuse as so-called wives.
Historical Background
Origins and independence
Haiti’s revolution, led by enslaved people who rose up against colonial rule, culminated in independence in 1804. Under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Black revolutionaries challenged the contradiction at the heart of Atlantic liberalism: universal rights proclaimed alongside racial slavery. Louverture died in French captivity in 1803; Dessalines declared independence on January 1, 1804. The new state faced immediate isolation through a trade boycott and an indemnity demanded by France that siphoned a large share of national income for over a century, entrenching post-colonial vulnerability.
Coups, interventions, and authoritarian rule
The two centuries after independence were marked by recurrent coups and foreign interventions, including the Duvalier dictatorship from 1957 to 1986. These patterns led to weak institutions and coercive governance.
Democratic openings and reversals
Following international pressure, free elections in 1990 brought Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, followed by a 1991 military coup. A US-led intervention restored him until 1996, after which political alternation and contestation resumed. Aristide’s later tenure faced organized resistance and international controversy, ending with his 2004 departure and the deployment of a UN stabilization mission.
Disasters and governance stress
From 2004 onward, successive storms, hurricanes, and the 2010 earthquake produced mass casualties and displacement, further degrading governance capacity and public services.
Post-2011 political volatility and state erosion
Michel Martelly’s presidency, who was elected in 2011, saw stalled reconstruction, corruption allegations, parliamentary dissolution, and delayed elections, with Jovenel Moïse finally inaugurated in 2017. His assassination in 2021 precipitated spiralling gang control over much of the capital and rural areas, widespread abuses against civilians, deepening poverty, and large-scale internal displacement that had past 1.46 million by May 2026.
International response and the rise of Viv Ansanm (2022–2024)
From 2022, the UN imposed a sanctions regime on Haiti and authorised a Kenyan-led security mission; the G9 and G-Pèp gang confederations merged into the Viv Ansanm coalition in February 2024, prompting Prime Minister Henry’s resignation and the establishment of a Transitional Presidential Council; and civilian self-defence movements, beginning with Bwa Kalé, emerged alongside escalating gang violence
Key Developments (2025–2026)
Several major developments have occurred between January 2025 and June 2026:
- Continuing funding and troop shortfalls in the Kenyan-led mission:
The US froze and then partially restored funding to the mission’s trust fund in February 2025, when Salvadoran and Kenyan reinforcements brought personnel to approximately 1,000. Carlos Ruiz Massieu was appointed Special Representative for Haiti in July 2025, and BINUH’s mandate was extended to January 2026. - Sanctioning of the Viv Ansanm coalition and Gran Grif:
The UN Security Council sanctioned the Viv Ansanm coalition and the Gran Grif gang on 8 July 2025, followed by EU designations of individual gang leaders later that month and a further UN sanctions renewal in October 2025. - Internal cohesion and fragmentation within the Viv Ansanm coalition:
Inter-gang clashes in June 2025 and Chérizier’s August 2025 commitment to continued opposition to the government preceded a UN Panel of Experts and International Crisis Group finding, in late 2025 and 2026, that the coalition lacks a unitary command structure. This decentralisation produced further clashes between constituent gangs in March, April, and May 2026. - Formation of the Transitional Presidential Council:
Laurent Saint-Cyr became TPC president in August 2025. A majority of TPC members attempted to remove Prime Minister Fils-Aimé from office in January 2026, but the council’s mandate expired as scheduled on 7 February 2026, transferring full executive authority to Fils-Aimé; a National Pact for Stability and the Organization of Elections followed later that month. - Failed preparations for elections:
Voltaire’s January 2025 pledge to hold elections in November 2025 gave way to repeated delays. A revised calendar published in December 2025 set elections for August and December 2026, but candidate registration was paused in 2026 amid a dispute over the electoral council’s budget. - State response to gang violence:
Drone operations by the government’s Task Force, supported by the PMSC Vectus Global, escalated through the reporting period, with Human Rights Watch documenting at least 1,243 people killed in 141 operations between March 2025 and January 2026. The government declared a state of maximal emergency in April 2026, amid which security operations reduced Viv Ansanm’s control of Port-au-Prince to approximately seventy-two per cent, down from a peak of around ninety per cent. - Local responses to rising gang violence:
Members of the “La Coalition” self-defence group killed at least fourteen people in the Artibonite in May 2025 on suspicion of collaboration with Gran Grif. A further security brigade was established in Port-de-Paix in January 2026. - Massacres carried out by the Gran Grif gang and Viv Ansanm:
Between 28 and 31 March 2026, Gran Grif killed at least ninety-five civilians and displaced more than 13,500 people in the Artibonite, in what became known as the Jean-Denis massacre. Gran Grif subsequently coordinated further attacks with fellow coalition member Kokorat San Ras in Marchand-Dessalines and Saint-Marc in May 2026. - Transformation of the Kenyan-led MSS into a Gang Suppression Force:
Following continued Russian and Chinese opposition to a full UN peacekeeping transformation, the Security Council authorised the Gang Suppression Force in September 2025. Deployment remained slow through 2025, with the first Chadian troops and UNSOH becoming operational on 1 April 2026; by mid-2026 the force numbered approximately 800 personnel, well below its 5,500 ceiling. - Terrorist designation of Gran Grif and Viv Ansanm gangs by the United States and arrests of gang members on US territory:
Following the May 2025 foreign terrorist organisation designations, the US made further arrests and sanctioned additional individuals through 2025 and 2026, including a $3 million reward offer targeting the financial networks of both groups.
Non-International Armed Conflict
Haiti vs Viv Ansanm
The NIAC between Haiti, supported by the Gang Suppression Force, and Viv Ansanm is ongoing. Viv Ansanm emerged in September 2023 as an alliance of gangs in Port-au-Prince and reactivated its coalition in February 2024 to oppose the transitional government through coordinated attacks against State infrastructure. From 2026, Gran Grif has been treated as a member of the coalition, on the basis of its listing in the UN Panel of Experts’ gang profiles and documented operational coordination with fellow coalition members. The intensity threshold is met through sustained attacks against State infrastructure and personnel, large-scale casualties and displacement — internal displacement reached 1,466,862 people by May 2026 — the escalation of drone warfare by Haitian security forces, and the government’s declaration of a state of maximal emergency in April 2026. The organization requirement is satisfied notwithstanding the absence of a unified chain of command: the UN Panel of Experts and International Crisis Group both found that Viv Ansanm’s constituent gangs retain independent command structures, with Jimmy Chérizier acting as coalition spokesperson rather than supreme commander, but the coalition nonetheless demonstrates sustained coordinated operational capacity and territorial control. Only self-defence brigades sufficiently integrated into State security operations, such as the Communal Brigade of Kenscoff, are treated as attributable to Haiti; more autonomous groups are not attributed to either party, though individual members may lose civilian protection through direct participation in hostilities.
Parties to the Conflict(s) and Other Main Actors
State Parties
- Haiti (supported by the Gang Suppression Force, GSF)
Non-State Parties
- Viv Ansanm (including, from the 2026, Gran Grif as a coalition member)
Other Non-State Actors
- Vectus Global (US PMSC led by Blackwater-founder Erik Prince)
- Brigade de Surveillance des Aires Protégées (a paramilitary force)
- Organized civilian self-defence groups, whose attribution to Haiti depends on the degree of State direction and control exercised over each group
Foreign Involvement
- United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH)
- Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti (until 2 October 2025)
- Gang Suppression force (GSF) (since 2 October 2025; operational from 1 April 2026, with contributing troops from Chad, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica and Mongolia)
- United Nations Support Office in Haiti (UNSOH) (operational from 1 April 2026)
ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS
Both the authorities and civilians have been targets of gang violence, in particular from the Viv Ansanm coalition.
During the period, Haiti saw several mass attacks on civilians. In the NIAC context with the Viv Ansanm coalition, the Wharf Jérémie massacre of 6 and 7 December 2024 in Cité Soleil, which was attributed to the coalition’s local gang, killed a reported 207 people, including children and many older persons. The authorities later revised the death toll down to 184. Victims were selected as suspected Vodou practitioners or older persons accused of witchcraft; many of the bodies were mutilated and burned. Separately, the Gran Grif gang’s assault in Port-Sondé on 3 October 2024, which occurred outside an armed conflict, left at least 70 dead, with killings by firearms and machetes, as well as rapes and the burning of homes. Late November 2024 attacks in the central department and a sharp rise in 2025 killings illustrate the escalating violence. Under law enforcement rules, drone strikes are only permissible when strictly unavoidable to protect life.
ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE
Public and private property have been attacked and destroyed during gang violence, with many buildings burnt down during attacks.
Attacks against homes and residential areas
The Viv Ansanm coalition carried out large-scale assaults on homes and residential districts in Port au Prince and beyond, marked by arson, looting, targeted abductions of women and girls, executions and forced displacement. Violence that intensified from early 2024 onwards included coordinated raids designed to depopulate neighbourhoods, extend territorial control, and terrorize civilians. Successive offensives in urban communes and outlying towns destroyed houses, markets and community infrastructure, caused mass casualties, and displaced tens of thousands. In one instance, attackers overran security posts and a prison, enabling a mass escape of inmates. This sustained pattern reflects deliberate attacks on civilians that may be intended to spread terror, which constitutes further war crimes.
VIOLATIONS AGAINST PERSONS IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY
Those taken from their homes have been physically and often sexually abused in violation of the IHL duty of humane treatment. In several communes, households were attacked at night and residents killed, while patterns of intimidation, abduction and sexual violence accompanied lethal force, reinforcing terror and territorial control.
Pervasive killings by armed gangs in Haiti were recorded during the reporting period. Civilians were routinely shot or stabbed in neighbourhoods under gang control, with sporadic raids and street violence causing widespread fatalities. Executions were used to enforce dominance, including summary killings of those who refused to submit, with victims murdered in their homes or executed publicly. Older persons and those accused of witchcraft were singled out in some localities, and bodies were mutilated or burned.