Haiti’s Gang Suppression Force faces a population disillusioned by past missions

Haiti’s Gang Suppression Force has arrived with a simple mandate and a difficult audience: neutralize, deter and weaken the gangs while working in a country whose population has grown desperate and disappointed by international deployments.

The GSF, authorized by the United Nations Security Council in 2023, is the 15th mission sent to Haiti since the beginning of the 1990s. Its task comes against the backdrop of decades of crisis. The force must confront armed gangs while also dealing with the consequences of earlier missions that failed to meet the population’s expectations.

In an interview with Diario Libre, force spokesman Igor Rugwiza acknowledged that Haiti’s years of crisis and conflict have affected the population of the neighboring Dominican Republic. The impact became especially visible after thousands of people left Haiti to escape violence and poverty.

Rugwiza, who is from Burundi and previously served as a U.N. public information officer, said the force expects conditions to improve as Haiti recovers. The source ends while describing that expectation.