The UN Hu­man Rights Of­fice has raised alarm over wors­en­ing vi­o­lence in Haiti, as gangs ex­pand their reach be­yond the cap­i­tal Port-au-Prince in­to cen­tral re­gions, car­ry­ing out killings, kid­nap­pings and sex­u­al vi­o­lence.

In a state­ment to­day, UN Hu­man Rights Chief Volk­er Türk said at least 2,680 peo­ple — in­clud­ing 54 chil­dren — were killed be­tween 1 Jan­u­ary and 30 May 2025. Near­ly 1,000 were in­jured and more than 300 kid­napped. A record 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple are now dis­placed.

Türk said, “Alarm­ing as they are, num­bers can­not ex­press the hor­rors Haitians are be­ing forced to en­dure on a dai­ly ba­sis.”

He said gang at­tacks were al­so fu­elling fur­ther in­sta­bil­i­ty across the re­gion, while a rise in self-de­fence and vig­i­lante groups has led to ad­di­tion­al abus­es.

Since late March, ma­jor at­tacks have tak­en place in Mire­bal­ais and Bas Art­i­bonite, with re­ports of po­lice sta­tions ran­sacked and over 500 in­mates freed. On 20 May, at least 25 peo­ple were killed in one com­mu­ni­ty at­tack. Ten days lat­er, six mem­bers of one fam­i­ly — in­clud­ing four girls aged two to 14 — were mur­dered in Port-au-Prince.

Türk al­so ex­pressed con­cern over po­lice killings, not­ing that at least 1,448 peo­ple had died dur­ing op­er­a­tions so far this year, and at least 65 were al­leged­ly ex­e­cut­ed by of­fi­cers.

He called for ac­count­abil­i­ty, sup­port for Haiti’s ju­di­cial task forces, and stronger in­ter­na­tion­al ac­tion. “The com­ing months will test the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty’s abil­i­ty to take stronger, more co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion,” he said.

Türk urged sup­port for the un­der-re­sourced Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port mis­sion, en­force­ment of the arms em­bar­go, and an end to forced re­turns of Haitians seek­ing refuge abroad.