Haiti's brutal gang wars have spread from the capital to key farming heartlands, displacing tens of thousands of people and having a devastating impact on access to food staples, the United Nations said in a report on Tuesday.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said long-awaited international security assistance—requested by Haiti's unelected government a year ago and authorized by the UN last month—should be deployed "as soon as possible."
Violence has gradually escalated in the Bas-Artibonite region north of the capital, the source of staples such as rice, with the UN documenting some 22,000 displaced amid murders, looting, kidnappings, and widespread sexual violence.
Armed with semi-automatic rifles and pistols, gangs have burned houses, attacked irrigation systems, stolen crops and livestock, and demanded "taxes" for farmers to access fields, it said.
Kidnappings and torture for ransom are also frequent, it said. Initially focused on transport routes, the UN said gangs are now increasingly attacking residential neighborhoods and abducting people en masse, as well as carrying out gang rapes of women and even young children.
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