Haiti: Area Wracked by Gang Violence

Haiti: UN Security Operation Brings Stability to Area Wracked by Gang Violence

New York, Feb 13 2007 12:00PM

Some of Haiti’s poorest people can now go about their daily business free from the fear of being terrorized by armed gangs following a large-scale United Nations security operation in the Boston area of the Cité Soleil quarter of Port-au-Prince, the capital, according to the top UN commander in the country.

“The situation has been stabilized and UN troops have re-established conditions in this quarter for the Government and international organizations to work there for the wellbeing of the population,” UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) Military Force Commander Major-General Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz told a news conferῥnce yesterday in Port-au-Prince.

“Under no circumstances can MINUSTAH troops accept that the local population should be victims of armed violence,” he added, referring to last Friday’s operation, which is part of an ongoing campaign by UN peacekeepers against criminal gangs in the capital.

Some 700 UN troops took part in Friday’s operation, which was aimed at dismantling the band of a gang chief named Evans and led to the arrest of seven presumed bandits and the seizure of battle materiel, including a calibre 5 rifle, 12 gun magazines, a gas mask and more than 5,000 pieces of ammunition.

MINUSTAH, set up in 2004 to help re-establish peace in the impoverished Caribbean country after an insurgency forced then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to go into exile, has reported that armed criminal gangs are forcing children to take part in their operations, often under threat of killing them, anῤ using them as human shiῥlds in confrontations with the police.

ENDS

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