When the number of gang-involved massacres in Haiti stood at five a few years ago, the head of a leading human rights group warned U.S. lawmakers about the Caribbean nation’s exploding crises of gang violence and firearms trafficking.
“Haiti faces severe security challenges that affect all Haitians,” said Pierre Esperance, the executive director of the National Human Rights Defense Network/Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, RNDDH.
“From the capital to provincial cities, Haiti is full of armed gangs that enjoy the protection of the executive and legislative powers,” Esperance testified in 2019 before a House Foreign Affairs committee on the Western Hemisphere in Washington. “They regularly receive money and automatic firearms, and they never run out of ammunition.”
