Haiti: UN Security Operation Brings Stability to Area Wracked by Gang Violence
New York, Feb 13 2007 12:00PM
Some of Haiti’s poorest people can now go about their daily business free from the fear of being terrorized by armed
gangs following a large-scale United Nations security operation in the Boston area of the Cité Soleil quarter of
Port-au-Prince, the capital, according to the top UN commander in the country.
“The situation has been stabilized and UN troops have re-established conditions in this quarter for the Government and
international organizations to work there for the wellbeing of the population,” UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti
(MINUSTAH) Military Force Commander Major-General Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz told a news conferῥnce yesterday in
Port-au-Prince.
“Under no circumstances can MINUSTAH troops accept that the local population should be victims of armed violence,” he
added, referring to last Friday’s operation, which is part of an ongoing campaign by UN peacekeepers against criminal
gangs in the capital.
Some 700 UN troops took part in Friday’s operation, which was aimed at dismantling the band of a gang chief named Evans
and led to the arrest of seven presumed bandits and the seizure of battle materiel, including a calibre 5 rifle, 12 gun
magazines, a gas mask and more than 5,000 pieces of ammunition.
MINUSTAH, set up in 2004 to help re-establish peace in the impoverished Caribbean country after an insurgency forced then
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to go into exile, has reported that armed criminal gangs are forcing children to take
part in their operations, often under threat of killing them, anῤ using them as human shiῥlds in confrontations with the
police.
ENDS