Gang activity in Port-au-Prince expanded into new neighborhoods in January 2020, as criminal groups that had consolidated control over areas like Cité Soleil and La Saline began pushing into adjacent communities and extending their extortion networks to new areas. The expansion came at a moment when the police were particularly stretched, with the political crisis having diverted law enforcement resources and attention for months.
Residents of newly affected neighborhoods described a pattern of incremental takeover that typically began with extortion demands on local businesses and escalated to direct physical control of streets and community spaces. The process was accompanied by intimidation, violence against those who resisted, and the displacement of families unwilling to live under gang rule.
Human rights organizations documented the expansion of what they called gang-controlled territories in the metropolitan area, mapping the progressive erosion of the state’s presence in large swaths of the capital. The maps showed a city increasingly fragmented into zones of varying degrees of gang influence, with the police maintaining meaningful presence only in certain areas.
The political significance of gang expansion was not lost on analysts. Some criminal networks had alleged connections to political figures who used them for mobilization and intimidation. The weakening of the state created by the political crisis had given these networks room to grow, creating a security situation that would be extremely difficult to reverse even after a political resolution was eventually found.