Reluctance to commit personnel to intervene is in part due to the fact that Haiti’s gangs are now well-armed.
“For any international force that goes in, there’ll be a price in blood both on the international side and on the Haitian side,” Wenski said.
As of 2020, there were 150 to 200 criminal gangs in Haiti. As many as 500,000 illegal guns could be circulating in Haiti for use in gang conflicts, according to a March report on Haiti’s criminal markets from the United Nations Office on Drug Trafficking and Crime. Many weapons and ammunition have been purchased in various U.S. states with lax gun-sale laws and smuggled out through Florida.
Haiti is also a nexus for the illegal drug trade as a transit point for cocaine being smuggled from Colombia to the U.S. and Canada. Cannabis from Jamaica is smuggled through Haiti to the Dominican Republic, the U.N. report said.
Wenski noted that the U.S. has assets in the Caribbean, such as U.S. Coast Guard patrols, to stop Haitian refugees and boat people from arriving in the U.S. and to return them to Haiti.
“If the United States has those assets there, you would think that they have assets to address these other problems as well,” he said.
The dangers of life in Haiti have hurt people’s ability to provide for themselves and their families, the archbishop added.
“People can’t go to work. People can’t work. So you have increasing levels of poverty and increasing levels of food insecurity,” he said.
In May, a joint report from the U.N. World Food Programme and the Food and Agricultural Organization estimated that about 5.2 million Haitians, including almost 3 million children, need emergency humanitarian aid. Approximately 4.9 million people will suffer from hunger, and of these, about 1.8 million are at an emergency level of need. More than 115,000 children under age 5 are predicted to suffer life-threatening malnutrition this year — an increase of 30%.
Among those responding to these needs is Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the U.S. bishops’ global humanitarian organization.
“Food insecurity in the country is high and the humanitarian needs are climbing,” Kim Pozniak, senior director for global communications at Catholic Relief Services, told CNA. “CRS and our partners continue to focus on lifesaving support to families who’ve been affected by the insecurity and violence, including providing cash so people can cover some of their needs, like food and other essentials.
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Natural disasters have also worsened the situation in Haiti. Severe floods hit the country in early June, and severe hurricanes are always a possibility. A deadly earthquake killed hundreds in August 2021, and 220,000 were killed in the devastating 2010 earthquake. A major cholera outbreak after the 2010 earthquake infected 820,000 people and killed 10,000, but more recent outbreaks have been far less severe. After years of decline, however, an outbreak in October 2022 caused 600 confirmed cases and over 6,500 suspected cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Archbishop Wenski noted the important support provided by the Haitian community in the U.S., whose members often send large portions of their income to relatives in Haiti.
“Haitians in the United States are very much aware of what’s happening in Haiti,” he said. “They’re close to their relatives there, and so they’re decrying the situation and also looking for solutions.”
“There are many sister relationships between the United States and dioceses and churches in Haiti,” Wenski added. The archbishop of Miami told CNA he sends stipends for Mass intentions to Haitian priests so they can have an income in a country where parishes often can’t financially support their own priests.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for the Church in Latin America provides financial support for various pastoral projects in Haiti, including the reconstruction of churches and schools destroyed in the devastating 2010 earthquake. However, some of these projects have been suspended because they are in gang-controlled areas.
Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services’ Egan Journalism Fellowship.
