UN Security Council Hears of Rising Deportations and Gang Violence in Haiti

The first eight months of 2026 have seen almost 200,000 people being forcibly returned to Haiti, an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council learned on Friday, days after a gang attack near the troubled Caribbean nation's capital left 47 people dead.

The attack — which took place on Sunday in Kenscoff on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince — came days after a first US deportation flight landed in Haiti following the Trump administration winning a legal case which stripped away the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of Haitians.

Activists caution that Haiti, at present, is too dangerous amid surging gang violence and lacks the resources to help those being deported to the country.

"The latest attack on Kenscoff is yet another grim reminder of the suffering Haitians face every day," Indrika Ratwatte, the acting UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council on Friday.

What else was discussed at the UNSC emergency meeting?

Forcible deportations to Haiti so far in 2026 were 10% higher over the same period last year, Ratwatte said.

Meanwhile, nearly 1.5 million people, among Haiti's population of nearly 12 million, are internally displaced, with half of them being children, as per the summary of the Securtiy Council's meeting.

Ratwatte told the UNSC that the displacement has doubled in just two years, while describing the conditions in many displacement sites as "squalid".

Haiti calls for rapid deployment of multinational force

At the meeting, Haiti urged the full deployment of the UN mandated Gang ‌Suppression Force (GSF).

The multinational force was authorized in 2025 to suppress gang violence across Haiti and restore public safety, working alongside the Haitian police and armed forces.

The GSF aims to reach a capacity of 5,500 troops by fall and the Security Council will vote on whether to renew its mandate at the end of next month.

At the UNSC emergency meeting, Haiti's representative Pierre Ericq Pierre called on the international community to accelerate the deployment of the GSF to its planned strength.

US representative Jennifer Locetta urged the Security Council to renew the GSF's mandate.

"The ⁠GSF was not created to issue statements from within a compound wall or spend our money while Haiti suffers," she said.

Locetta said that if more nations ⁠bring material support to the force, ​it could assist police fight gangs more efficiently.

"This attack is precisely why the UN authorized Gang Suppression Force's mission and mandate matters," she said.

Calls for stronger arms embargo in Haiti

Pierre also asked for support for his country's recruitment and training of new military personnel and stronger enforcement of the UNSC's arms embargo to curb the flow of firearms and ammunition.

An illegal flow of weapons and ammunition into Haiti has continued to strengthen armed gangs, according to the UN Human Rights Office.

The UN on Friday referred to reports of a gang operating in Port-au-Prince displaying what appeared to be a new shipment of weapons arriving from abroad on its social media account earlier this week, despite the UNSC arms embargo on Haiti which has been enforced since 2022.

Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko