Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 10th May. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk warned on Tuesday that Haiti needs “urgent” support from the international community to stop the suffering of people at the hands of violent gangs who have been shooting people at random and burning them alive.
According to information released by the UN Integrated Office in Haiti, over 600 people were killed in violence in last month alone and this follows the killing of 846 people in the first three months of 2023.
BINUH said that overall, the number of victims of killings, injuries and kidnappings increased by 28 per cent in the first quarter of the year, with a total of 1,634 cases reported.
UN human rights office said that mob killings and lynchings of alleged gang members are on the rise, as “vigilantes take the law into their own hands”.
Over 164 such murders were documented in April, it stated.
The latest report from OHCHR and BINUH points to the emergence of vigilante groups, “after calls by some political figures and journalists for citizens to form self-defence organizations to fight gang violence”.
Mr. Turk stressed that commenting on the findings that vigilantism will only “fuel the spiral of violence”.
The report noted that gangs use snipers on rooftops to “indiscriminately shoot people carrying out their daily activities”.
It said gang members burst into neighborhoods on a killing spree, “burned people alive in public transportation vehicles” and executed “everyone perceived to be opposed to the gang”.
The report documents the use of sexual violence, including collective rape, “to terrorize and inflict pain” on populations under the control of rival gangs.
According to a local human rights organization quoted in the report, at least 652 women and girls were “subjected to individual and collective rape in gang-controlled areas over the past year”.
Mr. Turk underscored that poverty and the lack of basic services were among the root causes of the gangs’ stranglehold over the country.
WFP had warned that half the population of Haiti, or some 4.9 million people, were struggling to access food.
“The Government, with support from the international community, must do its utmost to comply with its obligation to provide people with regular and unimpeded access to clean water, food, health and shelter,” Mr. Türk said.
He said a “robust response” was needed to what he billed as a “human rights emergency”.
Mr. Türk reiterated his call on the international community to “deploy a time-bound, specialized and human rights-compliant support force, with a comprehensive action plan to assist Haiti’s institutions”.
Haiti was on the agenda of the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution called for the appointment of an independent rights expert on Haiti.
It was sponsored by Haiti the resolution called for “coordinated and targeted international action”.
The duties of the new independent expert on human rights in Haiti, William O’Neill will focus on the situation of children and of human trafficking and providing advice and technical assistance to the Haitian Government, national human rights institutions and civil society organizations to help promote and protect human rights.
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