MIAMI — In the early hours of a Sunday in late July, members of one of Haiti’s largest gangs attacked the town of Ganthier, about 25 miles east of the capital and on a highway that authorities say is used for arms smuggling.
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When police reinforcements arrived in armored vehicles hours later, officers found the streets deserted, the gang members having left after destroying the Ganthier police station and torturing and killing several residents, the mayor and police said.
“The whole town of Ganthier is empty,” said Mayor Jean Vilonor Victor.
Weeks after the arrival of a United Nations-backed international security force in Haiti, gangs that have overwhelmed the capital, Port-au-Prince, and other regions of the country show no signs of relenting.
An international effort to bolster Haitian police and a transitional government has eased conditions in parts of the capital, experts say, but gangs have refocused on the outskirts, ravaging towns that had escaped their campaign of murder, kidnapping and rape.
The attack on Ganthier, a town of 60,000 people on a highway linking the capital to the Dominican Republic, is emblematic of the security problem facing Haiti’s government as it tries to rebuild the shattered country that has seen three years of violence, mass migration and economic ruin.
The first wave of Kenyan police deployed to Haiti lack the numbers and weapons needed to dismantle the gangs, experts say.
The appointment of a new prime minister, Garry Conille, in May is part of a complicated transition back to democratic rule, with elections scheduled for 2025. Haiti has been in turmoil since July 2021, when the last president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated.
The arrival of 400 Kenyan police this summer was intended to bolster the Haitian police force, which has been battling a gang offensive since late February.
For now, the Kenyans are not straying far from their base at Port-au-Prince’s international airport, which reopened in May after being closed for more than two months due to gang violence. With the support of Kenyan agents, Haitian police have entered parts of the capital they had abandoned, said Diego Da Rin of the International Crisis Group.
Six other countries have pledged to provide security forces. But the biggest problem is funding. The United States has pledged $360 million of the estimated $600 million annual cost of the deployment.
“We urge countries to do much more than they have done,” Brian A. Nichols, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said recently.
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