Brutal takeover of Haiti by gangs is apocalyptic, says UN rights expert

The UN's top expert on human rights in Haiti has warned the Caribbean country is rapidly moving towards becoming "like Somalia in the worst of its times" after a criminal uprising that has displaced tens of thousands of people and largely cut its capital city off from the world.

- Tom Phillips

Just over a month after the gang rebellion began, William O'Neill - an American human rights lawyer who has been travelling to Haiti for more than 30 years-voiced alarm over the rapidly deteriorating situation in Port-au-Prince.

The international airport has been closed since early March because of the violence, foreigners are being evacuated by helicopter, and heavily armed gang fighters continue to sow chaos, launching almost daily attacks on schools, universities, hospitals, banks, businesses and the political heart of the city. On Wednesday, the national library was looted.

"I know someone who lost half her family to [former dictator] François Duvalier's execution squads and she said she's never seen it this bad," O'Neill, the UN's independent expert, who helped set up the resource-starved Haitian police force in the mid-1990s that is now battling to stem the tide, said from Geneva.

"It's apocalyptic, it's like the end of times", he added. "[There's] a level of intensity and cruelty in the violence that is simply unprecedented in my experience in Haiti."

More than 1,500 people have been killed in the first three months of 2024, compared with 4,451 for all of last year, the UN said last week.