SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is proposing opening a U.N. office that would provide drones, fuel, ground and air transportation and other non-lethal support to a Kenyan-led mission in Haiti struggling to fight gangs, according to a letter obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.
The letter was sent to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday night and provides the first details for a proposal that Guterres announced last week at a summit with Caribbean leaders. At the time, Guterres said he would request that the U.N. assume funding for the mission’s structural and logistical expenses but did not provide further information.
In the letter, Guterres assessed the situation in Haiti and warned it was running out of time.
“We must act quickly,” he wrote. “I am convinced that the phased approach of the United Nations’ support… can reverse the shocking and rising trend in gang violence.”
Guterres said his proposal is a “realistic option,” adding that “at this stage, transitioning to a U.N. peacekeeping operation is not…a feasible option.”
The proposal comes as gangs that already control 85% of Haiti’s capital seized new neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince in recent weeks. The attacks have left more than 6,000 people homeless in the past month, according to the U.N.
“Entire families were killed in their homes, while others, including children and babies, were shot dead as they tried to escape,” the U.N. said in a statement Tuesday.
Guterres said in the letter that the U.N. office he proposes could help strengthen Haiti’s National Police and help gather, store and share sensitive information related to operations, as well as provide a joint operations center, GIS support and surveillance via drones.
In turn, Guterres said BINUH, the latest U.N. political mission in Haiti, could focus on priorities including designing programs to help children and women forced to join gangs defect from them, as well as support authorities in the arrests and prosecutions of “high-risk individuals.”
The Security Council previously extended the U.N.-backed mission in Haiti led by Kenyan police to October of this year even as the U.S. and other countries warn it is lacking personnel and funding.
Guterres noted in his letter that while the mission has reached 1,000 personnel, the vast majority of them Kenyan police, it still only represents 40% of the 2,500 personnel envisioned.
In addition, a U.N. trust fund that is helping fund the mission has only $110.8 million.
“Much more is needed,” Guterres wrote.
He also noted that “many” of the mission’s armored vehicles are ill-equipped for the urban environment in Port-au-Prince and that a lack of spare parts has rendered half of all its combat vehicles inoperable.
Last year, more than 5,600 people were reported killed across Haiti, 1,000 more deaths than reported the previous year. Gang violence also has left more than one million people homeless in recent years, according to the U.N.
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