The Security Council adopted a resolution on Tuesday renewing the mandate of the Gang Suppression Force until March 31, 2027, a decision that comes amid a context of extreme violence in Haiti. The resolution was adopted with twelve votes in favor, none against, and three abstentions: China, Russia, and Pakistan, which expressed serious reservations about the force’s mandate, financing, and operational risks.
Despite this extension, the situation of the Gang Suppression Force remains deeply concerning. The number of personnel deployed on the ground remains far below the 5,500 authorized by Resolution 2793 adopted in September 2025. According to available information, only about 1,083 to 1,200 members were actually deployed during the summer of 2026, barely one-fifth of the planned capacity.
This slow deployment is due to considerable logistical constraints. The Force’s spokesperson, Igor Rugwiza, himself acknowledged that the goal of full operational capacity could not be achieved within the initial timeframes because of these difficulties. The challenges are multiple: transporting heavy equipment, coordination among contingents from countries as diverse as Chad, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Jamaica, and establishing a reliable logistics chain in a country where the main roads are controlled by gangs.
Financial problems constitute an equally formidable obstacle. The Force depends largely on voluntary contributions from member states to fund personnel salaries, which creates permanent uncertainty and undermines long-term planning. This financial fragility had already been identified as one of the causes of the failure of the previous mission, the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission, which ended in April 2026.
Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé had pleaded last Friday at the UN podium in favor of renewing and strengthening the Force. Before the General Assembly, he issued a vibrant appeal to the international community: “A mandate is not enough. We need forces. We need equipment, and we need the determination to see it through to the end.”
Fils-Aimé recalled that Haiti was at a “pivotal moment” in its history, confronted with criminal violence that threatens the entire society. He nevertheless insisted that his country was “neither defeated, nor asking others to decide its future.” He called on the international community “not to save Haiti, but to stand by its side while it takes its destiny into its own hands.”
The Prime Minister also announced that the government was actively training its own security forces, with a program aimed at training 4,000 police officers, of whom more than 2,000 have already completed their training, as well as 15,000 additional soldiers over three years.
Meanwhile, gangs continue to massacre the population with unprecedented brutality. The latest killing took place in Gros-Morne, in the Artibonite department. According to local authorities, members of the “Kokorat San Ras” gang murdered at least eleven to twelve people on Monday, in retaliation for an operation carried out a few hours earlier by a Sri Lankan contingent of the Gang Suppression Force.
The mayor of Gros-Morne, Hubert Cénéac, recounted that the Force’s soldiers had dislodged gang members who had set up illegal toll posts in the area, but that they had stayed only a few hours before returning to their base in Gonaïves. “In revenge, the armed men spread terror among the population,” he stated.
This pattern is unfortunately familiar: a security operation limited in time, followed by a bloody retaliation by gangs against defenseless civilians. Gros-Morne is a stronghold of the Kokorat San Ras gang, one of the criminal organizations that have expanded from Port-au-Prince into the Artibonite, the country’s main agricultural region.
Violence in Haiti continues to worsen. According to United Nations data, more than 3,000 people were killed during the first half of 2026 in gang-related violence. Nearly 1.5 million Haitians are internally displaced, a record figure.
The structural challenges are immense: arms trafficking continues to fuel the gangs, with weapons arriving mainly by sea and linked to other forms of organized crime, notably drug trafficking. Port security remains gravely deficient, to the point that the United States has imposed stricter entry conditions on ships coming from Haiti.
The renewal of the mandate until March 2027 offers a prolonged legal framework, but without sufficient personnel, without predictable funding, and without a clear strategy to protect civilians in remote areas, it risks being merely an illusory reprieve for a population already living in the hell of the gangs.
