WASHINGTON, DC — The
US and Canadian
militaries on Saturday delivered security equipment to Haiti including armored
vehicles to help the impoverished Caribbean nation tackle spiraling security
and health crises, Washington and Ottawa announced.
اضافة اعلان
The request for assistance from Haiti came as a
cholera epidemic worsens and armed gangs seize vast swathes of territory,
including the country’s largest fuel import terminal.
US and Canadian air force planes landed in
Port-au-Prince carrying “vital Haitian government-purchased security equipment,
including tactical and armored vehicles”, a joint statement from the two
governments said.
The equipment will help police combat “criminal
actors who are fomenting violence and disrupting the flow of critically-needed
humanitarian assistance, hindering efforts to halt the spread of cholera”, it
said.
The US and Canada also said they plan to help Haiti
bolster their police training efforts.
A senior US diplomat and a senior military official
visited the Haitian capital this week in a show of support.
But Washington has made clear it is reluctant to
send troops to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, for a
proposed international force.
United Nations Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres
has urged member states to deploy a “rapid action force” to Haiti to tackle “a
dramatic deterioration in security.”
A UN report said
Friday that 60 percent of Port-au-Prince — or 1.5 million people — may now be
under the control of gangs, many of which the report said have turned to sexual
assault to consolidate power.
Protests and looting have rocked the already
unstable country since September 11, when the government announced a fuel price
hike.
Since mid-September, the country’s largest fuel
import terminal, in Varreux, has been controlled by powerful armed gangs.
The UN last week also warned of a possible explosion
of cholera cases in Haiti, with 32 confirmed and 224 suspected cases as of
October 8, according to the
World Health Organization — the country’s first
cases in three years.
Nearly 10,000 people died during a cholera epidemic
in Haiti between 2010 and 2019.
Haiti had already been mired in a political and economic
crisis for years before the assassination of president Jovenel Moise in 2021
exacerbated its instability, with gangs taking an increasingly strong hold.
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