Haiti demands global compliance with arms embargo, warns gang weapons are foreign-made

By Yasin Gungor

ISTANBUL (AA) - Haiti on Monday demanded international compliance with a UN arms embargo, warning that heavily armed criminal gangs sustain violent offensives using illicit weapons and ammunition smuggled from abroad.

“If the gangs manage to respond to this force in this way … it is because the weapons and the ammunition which they have, weapons and ammunition that was not made in Haiti,” the Haitian representative told the UN Security Council, noting that weapons “continue to find ways of entering the country via transnational criminal networks.”

He stressed that member states must implement Resolution 2831, adopted on Oct. 14, which calls on international partners to take “urgent and decisive measures” to halt weapons trafficking into the Caribbean nation.

“Security operations alone will not be enough,” the representative said, explaining that the reconstitution of the National Commission for Disarmament, Dismantlement and Reintegration reflects national resolve to confront the underlying drivers of gang violence.

The appeal came during a broader council session in which UN officials warned that armed violence killed more than 1,000 people and led to more than 100 kidnappings between July and September, while insecurity spread into rural departments and nearly 1.5 million people were displaced nationwide.

While the multinational Gang Suppression Force (GSF) has surpassed 2,000 personnel deployed from six contributing states, mission leadership cautioned that severe shortages of armored vehicles, tactical communications and aerial reconnaissance assets continue to hinder efforts to dislodge armed groups.

Muhammed Yasin Güngör