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. Between 2023 and 2025, international missions, renewed sanctions, and a transitional presidential council sought to stabilize the situation, but political dialogue faltered, elections were repeatedly delayed, and the humanitarian situation deteriorated. New gang coalitions carried out massacres and openly challenged State authority, prompting emergency measures, intensified security operations, and civilian self-defence mobilization, amid the imposition of UN sanctions on gang leaders.
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 spiraling gang control over much of the capital and rural areas, widespread abuses against civilians, deepening poverty, and large-scale internal displacement approaching one million people by late 2024.
Key Developments (2023–2025)
The reporting period saw several major developments:
- Deployment of Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission and extension of United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH): the Security Council authorized the MSS on 2 October 2023 and Kenyan contingents deployed in June–July 2024 amid persistent violence and resource constraints. The MSS’ mandate was renewed on 30 September 2024. On 14 July 2025, the mandate of BINUH, an UN special political mission deployed in June 2019, was extended to January 2026, with leadership adjustments to sustain political accompaniment.
- Imposition of renewed sanctions on Haiti: targeted sanctions imposed on Haiti were renewed on 19 October 2023 and again on 18 October 2024, with notable listings of four gang leader on 8 December 2023. On 8 July 2025, the Viv Ansanm coalition and Gran Grif gang were also sanctioned, and the regime was extended on 17 October 2025 to maintain pressure on armed actors and facilitators.
- Attempts at resolving the political crisis through dialogue: the National Consensus Agreement concluded between the incumbent prime minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, the opposition, and members of civil society in December 2022 failed to translate into an operative compact despite Caribbean Community (CARICOM)-facilitated contacts in July 2023. As a result, core disputes over electoral timeline, schedule of elections and the inauguration of a new government remained unresolved.
- Deteriorating humanitarian situation and gang-related insecurity: indicators worsened through 2023; UN personnel began evacuations in November 2024 as violence escalated, and by October 2025 internal displacement reached a record high, underscoring systemic protection and access gaps.
- Legal ramifications of the 2021 assassination of President Moïse: US prosecutions advanced in October–December 2023, and on 19 February 2024 Haitian judicial authorities issued charges against multiple suspects, reflecting parallel accountability tracks.
- Establishment of the ‘Viv Ansanm’ alliance: a fragile truce announced on 1 July 2023 unraveled; on 29 February 2024 a coordinated offensive marked a turning point, followed by renewed escalation in November 2024 and an explicit overthrow pledge on 7 August 2025.
- Formation of the Transitional Presidential Council: the TPC assumed authority on 25 April 2024, installed a prime minister on 3 June 2024, and rotated its presidency on 7 March 2025 and again in August 2025 amid persistent intra-council frictions.
- State response to gang violence: a nationwide state of emergency was declared on 2 September 2024. A special task force was launched on 1 March 2025, with intensifying kinetic measures including contested drone use later that year.
- Local responses to rising gang violence: civilian self-defence mobilization surged from April–June 2023, expanded beyond the capital after December 2024, and continued with targeted actions in May 2025, further complicating security governance.
- Failed preparations for elections: an electoral council was created on 18 September 2024 and completed on 13 December 2024; a January 2025 pledge for late-2025 polls gave way to October 2025 negotiations on arrangements beyond February 2026.
- Massacres carried out by the Gran Grif gang and Viv Ansanm: high-fatality attacks occurred on 3 October 2024 in Pont-Sondé and on 6–7 December 2024 in Wharf Jérémie, reflecting the capacity of both gangs to conduct large-scale violence against the population.
- Transformation of the Kenyan-led MSS into a Gang Suppression Force and plans to establish a new mission led by Organization of American States: debate over reconfiguration culminated on 30 September 2025 in the creation of a UN-supported Gang Suppression Force, effective 2 October 2025, while parallel OAS-led proposals circulated between May and August 2025 without materialization by end-October 2025.
- Terrorist designation of Gran Grif and Viv Ansanm gangs by the United States and arrests of gang members on US territory: the United States designated both coalitions on 2 May 2025 and pursued enforcement from July to September 2025, including high-profile arrests and related sanctions actions.
Non-International Armed Conflict
Haiti vs Viv Ansanm
Viv Ansanm, a coalition forged in September 2023 from the G9 and G-Pèp alliances and reactivated on 29 February 2024, presents as a single non-State armed actor with both political and military wings. Sufficient organization is evidenced by the fact that the coalition operates under hierarchical leadership by Jimmy Chérizier, maintains internal discipline and negotiated restraint despite episodic infighting, articulates unified public positions, pools financing through criminal governance, consolidates arms procurement networks, and exercises sustained territorial control in Port-au-Prince – reportedly around 85-90 per cent – enabling planning, coordination and implementation of IHL obligations. The intensity requirement is likewise satisfied: through 2024–2025 Viv Ansanm conducted frequent, strategically coordinated attacks primarily against Haitian State infrastructure, accompanied by extensive destruction, widespread civilian harm and large-scale internal displacement rising to approximately 1.3–1.4 million persons. Consistent with IHL’s approach, unilateral campaigns are counted given that the Haitian State forces meets the criterion of organization. Moreover, the State’s resort to militarized means, including armed drone strikes from March 2025 with high reported fatalities, is an indicative factor of protracted armed violence. International responses, while not determinative, are congruent: the Multinational Security Support mission began deploying in June 2024 following October 2023 authorization and was transformed in late September 2025 into a Gang Suppression Force mandated to neutralize, isolate and deter gangs alongside Haitian forces. Taken together, the coalition’s organization and the sustained level of hostilities demonstrate that a non-international armed conflict between Haiti and Viv Ansanm crystallized during the reporting period.
Parties to the Conflict(s) and Other Main Actors
State Parties
- Haiti
Non-State Parties
- Viv Ansanm
Other Main Actors
- Vectus Global (US PMSC led by Blackwater-founder Erik Prince)
- Brigade de Surveillance des Aires Protégées (a paramilitary force)
- 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; not yet deployed)
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.