MIAMI — As President Joe Biden heads to Canada on Thursday for a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, where the crisis in Haiti will be a leading topic, there is one thing that everyone can agree on:
Since the U.S. and Canada began targeting Haiti’s political and business elite with travel visa bans and economic sanctions in early November, the armed violence and kidnappings by gangs have only increased.
The spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Marta Hurtado, said at least 531 Haitians have been killed and 300 injured since the beginning of the year in clashes between gangs. In February alone, the U.N. office in Haiti registered 253 homicides and 259 kidnappings— the highest abduction figure in Haiti in a single month since the U.N. began keeping records in 2005, the office told the Miami Herald.
