Rising Violence in Haiti Sparks Fear and Warning.

Haiti's crime rate has more than doubled since last year, with over 1,600 incidents including homicide, rape, kidnapping, and lynchings reported in the first quarter of 2023. Gangs control wide swathes of Port-Au-Prince, plaguing residents with extreme violence as Haitians also grapple with extreme poverty and a humanitarian crisis. The UN's Special Representative for Haiti has warned of increasingly violent armed gangs vying for control of neighborhoods in the capital, and emphasized the urgent need for international specialized forces to deploy, warning that instability in Haiti could spill over to other countries in the region.