Haiti declares a state of emergency for three months

Port-au-Prince.- The Transitional Presidential Council of Haiti (CPT) and the Government declared a state of emergency for three months in the West, Artibonite and Center regions, departments that have been suffering for several months from the violence of criminal gangs that have plagued the Caribbean country for years. In a statement accessed by EFE this Sunday, the CPT indicated that this decision aims to grant the competent authorities the time and means necessary to restore security and peace.

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Faced with the magnitude of this crisis, “it is imperative to decree a major mobilization of the State’s institutional resources and means to remedy it,” he pointed out. This decision is part of a series of decisions made in the last few hours by the country’s authorities, in order to address the security crisis a few months before the elections scheduled for the end of this year. In the statement, the CPT and the Government emphasized their “firm determination to adopt all urgent and necessary measures to restore security, ensure the proper functioning of the institutions of the Republic, and restore national dignity”. Last Thursday, upon assuming the rotating presidency of the CPT, Laurent Saint-Cyr declared war on the armed gangs that terrorize the population and asked the international community to send more soldiers to the country. “The gangs will not have the last word,” warned the representative of the private sector on the Council, whose six-month term ends on February 7, 2026, with the inauguration of new authorities in a context in which the elections scheduled for the end of this year are at a standstill. “We must fight against these criminal groups until they are eradicated, so that the people can breathe,” he expressed. He asked Haiti’s international partners to increase their support for the country, send more soldiers, and provide much more training. In the country, the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti (MSS) operates, which, led by Kenya, is composed of police officers from various nations – and soldiers in smaller numbers – but in practice has not been able to stop the advance of the gangs that control 90% of Port-au-Prince and have moved to other areas. Hours before their swearing-in, the most powerful gang leader in Haiti, Jimmy Cherisier, alias Barbecue, stated that he would overthrow the Presidential Transition Council. At least 1,520 people were killed and 609 injured during the second quarter of the year in Haiti, mainly in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, mostly perpetrated by criminal gangs, according to a report recently published by the UN Integrated Office in the country (BINUH, in French), which described the human rights situation in the island nation as “extremely worrying”.