Haiti

At least 70 people have been killed and 30 injured during an attack in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region, significantly more than official estimates, a human rights group has said.

Police initially reported 16 dead and 10 injured, while a preliminary report from civil protection authorities suggested 17 had died and 19 were wounded.

The Collective Defending Human Rights group, which reported the higher death toll, said the “massacre” on Sunday had forced nearly 6,000 people to flee their homes.

🇭🇹 Gang violence in Haiti has reached extreme levels

The “Gran Grif” gang, one of the most brutal in Haiti, carried out an attack on the town of Jean-Denis, killing more than 70 civilians, including children. They also burned numerous homes and buildings in the area.

Unlike… pic.twitter.com/L9crElcssd

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 31, 2026

A Haitian American Navy veteran and his police officer cousin who were working in Haiti with Studebaker, an American military contractor, are missing and presumed dead.

Miot Patrice Jacquet, a U.S. Navy veteran, did not think twice about helping an American military contractor with a dangerous mission in his native Haiti.

The company, Studebaker Defense, had an impressive pedigree: Its board is run by Wesley K. Clark, a retired American general and a former NATO supreme allied commander.

But instead of helping wrest Haiti back from gangs, the operation collapsed. The American team was forced to leave early, a cache of AR-15-style rifles was stolen and seven months ago, two people working with the team — including Mr. Jacquet — were abducted, remain missing and are most likely dead.

The country’s history is bookended by superstition and sealed at both ends in violence.

When in 2018 Donald Trump allegedly referred to Haiti as one of the world’s “shithole countries” from which immigration is per se undesirable, the deranged slogan “Haiti Is Great Already” promptly went viral on social media, turning up with clockwork predictability on T-shirts worn by various contrarian celebrity goons. While it might be conceded from the outset that “shithole” is not and should not be encompassed within the vocabulary of international diplomacy — Metternich, for example, is not known to have used the term — we would at the same time be loath to concede that the general sentiment properly expressed, that Haiti is the most failed of all failed states, is entirely without merit. It is, in fact, possible to assert an axiom in global affairs: No good news comes out of Haiti. To contemplate even in outline the history of this unhappiest of lands is to feel the dead weight of 20 decades of catastrophe, as if the god of mischief had chosen Haiti as a 28,000-square-kilometer proving ground for a grotesque experiment in just how much suffering one country can endure in the space of 200 years. In the aboriginal Taíno language, Haiti’s name means “land of high mountains.” But Haitians call their country by another name, “Ayiti-Cheri,” or “Haiti, my darling,” intoned more in pity than in pride, the way one might console a luckless friend, a feverish child, a grieving beloved.

Haiti, my darling. There is no word for your sorrows.

Our cultural guardians do not allow us to consider the role that voodoo plays in shaping how Haitians see the world and their place in it.

Back in 2018, President Donald Trump referred to Haiti as a “s**thole,” and was roundly denounced for being a racist. While watching a clip of a “cannibal gang” member eating a piece of roasted human leg on the streets of Port-au-Prince the other night (it’s revolting; you have been warned), it struck me that Trump’s judgment has held up pretty well.

Why is Haiti the way it is? Everybody has an explanation. The most popular one is that Haiti was horribly exploited by its former colonial master France, which imposed reparations on it that weren’t paid off until 1947. That’s true, and morally obscene. But the Dominican Republic, with which Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola, was just as poor as Haiti in 1947, and today is six to seven times richer.

It is the very definition of a failed state.

It’s a sad commentary on the current state of things that we look back on 2018 as “the good old days.” By comparison, that year was pretty good compared to this one on a number of metrics; however, by no objective criterion would that be a year regular Americans should pine for.

Ariel Henry was a brilliant neurosurgeon and a man the United States, at least, was convinced would be a safe pair of hands to manage the chaos in Haiti after the shocking 2021 assassination of President Moise, shot several times at his residence allegedly by Colombian commandos.

But Henry, Haiti’s urbane, somewhat aloof 74-year-old prime minister, has — like almost all his predecessors — completely failed to improve the plight of the Caribbean nation’s 11.5 million people. Instead, he has overseen Haiti’s latest descent into anarchy.

The nation’s downward spiral toward a Hobbesian war of all against all seems endless.

Anyone who has been to Haiti does not forget the experience. It is a beautiful, fascinating, tragic, and horrible place. The American writer, Herbert Gold, who lived there for part of his life, wrote a marvelous memoir, calling Haiti “the best nightmare on earth.” Haiti is the only country I have been to where starveling children have tried to snatch food from my plate, insinuating their stick-thin wrists through the grille that supposedly protected the restaurant’s customers.

Barbeque getting a bad rap?

So I know nothing about THIS👇🏼 person…

By knee jerk reaction was squash him like a bug. I know the media is demonizing him and calling him a cannibal.

I ALSO know typically when the media does that it’s BULLSHlT!!

Haiti has been destroyed by the Clinton Foundation, is known… pic.twitter.com/AtSF0UMhBi

— SaltyGoat (@SaltyGoat17) March 12, 2024

Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry has resigned, following an emergency summit called to address gang-led violence currently occurring in the country.

The 74-year-old head of state tendered his resignation Monday, a week after the growing coalition of gangs warned of civil war if he did not step down.

His resignation was swiftly confirmed by Guyana’s president Mohamed Irfaan Ali, the current chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In 2018, Donald Trump reportedly included Haiti on his “s**thole” countries list. Liberal America went apoplectic, as they were still reeling from their upset loss. In 2016. Anything Trump says is attacked, and things haven’t changed since he left office. Yet, this was also a true statement. The island nation has been a virtual failed state for decades. For days after those remarks, we were subjected to gaslighting from the liberal media who tried to sell the line that Haiti was the gem of the Caribbean.

Haiti Collapses, Cannibal Gangs Roam Streets, President Flees Country, BIDEN EVACUATES FIFTH EMBASSY

And our border is open.

In other news, where is the 3 billion the Clinton Foundation raised for Haiti?https://t.co/WKB5m6PGvx pic.twitter.com/9KWZC2eHkO

— 🇺🇸 Pamela Geller 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 (@PamelaGeller) March 11, 2024

h/t Kiki9

Armed gangs in Haiti’s capital released roughly 4,000 inmates from the country’s largest prison after a days-long gun battle with police on Sunday.

The vast majority of the 4,000 men held in the Port-au-Prince jail successfully escaped, according to reports from local media. Many of the inmates were gang members charged in connection with the 2021 assassination of Hatian President Jovenel Moise.

Armed gangs launched their attack against the prison earlier this weekend when Prime Minister Ariel Henry left the country on a visit to Kenya, seeking assistance in the fight against domestic gangs.

Related … Kenya signs deal in attempt to rescue plan for deployment of 1,000 police officers to Haiti

I bet this money is already disappeared … Ottawa sets $80.5M for Kenya-led multinational security mission in Haiti

My money is on BBQ.

Meet Jimmy a.k.a "BARBEQUE", Haiti's Notorious Gang Leader who has Vowed to Fight the Current Interim Gov't Even if it deploys Foreign Armies.

Apparently , The Prime Minister of Haiti went to Kenya to ask For Kenya Police deployment in Haiti to Neutralise the Armed gangs who… pic.twitter.com/qh3KjX5Vdw

— Elijah (@Elijahwasike) March 3, 2024

h/t Mauser