One of Haiti’s leaders says his country is at war with gangs and asks the world for help

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — One of Haiti’s leaders on Thursday asked the world to help his troubled Caribbean country fight what he characterized as a war against relentless gang violence and widespread hunger.

Laurent Saint-Cyr, head of Haiti’s transitional presidential council, addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York, saying that immediate action was needed because people were dying daily across Haiti.

“Just a four-hour plane ride from here, a human tragedy is unfolding,” he said. “Every day, innocent lives are extinguished. … Entire neighborhoods are disappearing.”’

“It’s important to say this: Haiti is experiencing war, a war between criminals that want to impose violence as a social order and an armed population that is fighting for human dignity and freedom,” Saint-Cyr said.

Violence between the country’s gangs and police, as well as with vigilante groups, has left more than 3,100 people dead from January to June, with another 1,189 injured, according to the U.N.

The mayhem has displaced more than 1.3 million people across Haiti in recent years, while more than half of Haiti’s nearly 12 million inhabitants were expected to experience severe hunger through through the first half of the year.

The refugees settle where they can, such as the shelter found by Kettia Jean Charles and her family in the Delmas 31 low-income area of the capital, Port-au-Prince. No longer as safe as it once was, it’s still a refuge compared to the Solino neighborhood where she ran a beauty salon — now a ghost town after gangsters drove out most remaining locals in November.

“I used to sleep in a bed, had my own business, and my children went to school. Now, I am living this catastrophic life,” Charles said.

Charles, 34, is at least seven months pregnant — she’s not sure exactly how many weeks — and lives with her husband and three children in a home made of four plastic sheets with a tarp for a roof. She gets some help from relatives nearby and the family fights for the scraps of food provided at the shelter.

“I am asking for help so I can get out of this situation,” Charles said as she wiped away tears. “Since I have come here, it has been very humiliating because I have no money, so I have to beg.”

Last year, a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenyan police officers launched operations in Haiti meant to help an understaffed and underfunded local police department fight back against the gangs.

But more than a year has passed, and the mission still has less than 1,000 personnel, far below the 2,500 envisioned, and some $112 million in its trust fund — about 14% of the estimated $800 million needed a year.

The U.S. and Panama have urged the U.N. Security Council to authorize a new force of 5,550 in Haiti, a proposal backed by Saint-Cyr.

“It is crucial to mobilize a strong force with a clear mandate and with adequate material, logistical and financial resources,” he said.

In the once-thriving neighborhood of Solino, which had several shops, businesses and even a health clinic, the gangs took everything they could, including electrical wiring, toilets and light fixtures. Nearly every home now has charred and bullet-riddled walls.

“All I dream about now is leaving this camp so that my children can go to school and contribute to society,” Charles said.

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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press videographer Pierre-Richard Luxama in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed.