UN mulls Haiti peacekeeping force as gangs ramp up warfareDiplomats at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday voiced broad support for converting a security mission helping Haitian police fight escalating gang warfare into a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission, though Russia and China remained opposed. Leaders of the Caribbean nation have repeatedly requested that a long-delayed and under-resourced Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission that partially deployed in June be converted into a peacekeeping mission to shore up funding. They argued Haiti needed more established peace to justify sending a peacekeeping mission and that Haiti’s government’s request was not valid as its leadership was not elected and marred by continuous infighting. “The MSS present in Haiti, although infused with goodwill, is experiencing huge challenges,” said Haiti’s U.N. Rodrigue added that a new peacekeeping mission should learn from the mistakes of past interventions in Haiti, which became notorious for human rights abuses and sparking a deadly cholera epidemic.

Source: Daily Nation November 21, 2024 16:27 UTC