Cracking down on worsening gang violence in Haiti, the United Nations and United States on Friday imposed new sanctions on a former palace security official and a Port-au-Prince gang leader, following a unanimous Security Council vote.
The sanctions target Bel Air gang leader Kempes Sanon and Dimitri Herard, who headed palace security at the time of President Jovenel Moise’s 2021 assassination and escaped prison during a mass jailbreak last year.
Why It’s Important
Haitian police and gangs have been locked in a years-long conflict that has seen violent criminal groups take control of most of the capital and expand to other parts of the country, displacing over 1.3 million people and killing thousands.
The UN sanctions plan aims to, via travel bans, asset freezes, and an arms embargo, reduce the funding and firearms reaching Haitian gangs. However, illegal arms continue to flow into the Caribbean nation, largely via ports in Florida and its Dominican land border.
It aims to work alongside a security deployment mandated to help Haitian police restore security that has largely stalled due to a lack of contributions and resources.
‘Effective Instrument’
“Haiti views the sanctions regime as an effective instrument of deterrence and justice, if it is properly applied and respected,” Haiti’s UN representative Ericq Pierre told the Security Council.
“Given the current situation, the results are mixed,” he added. “Haiti continues to be regularly supplied with heavy weapons and ammunition coming from abroad. We therefore make an urgent appeal to every state, particularly Haiti’s neighbors, to exercise utmost vigilance in controlling the transfer of arms.”
The US and UN accused Herard of facilitating arms trafficking to Haitian gangs and Sanon, whose gang counts an estimated 150 people, of helping consolidate the influence of the powerful Viv Ansanm gang alliance.
Bel Air Gang
Sanon leads the Bel Air gang, which controls a part of downtown Port-au-Prince that has seen some of the worst violence, including a series of massacres perpetrated by an alliance of gangs led by Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier.
The area had historically resisted Cherizier’s alliance, now known as Viv Ansanm, but after Sanon took control, he joined it.
Herard has, since his 2024 escape, faced rumors of involvement in drug trafficking, a key source of funding for gangs, but has in recent video messages denied these accusations.
(With inputs from Reuters)
