Haiti entered 2025 with criminal groups controlling an estimated 85 percent of Port-au-Prince and its metropolitan area, a figure that reflected the continued expansion of the Viv Ansanm coalition’s territorial dominance and the failure of the transitional government and the Kenya-led security mission to meaningfully reverse gang gains. The new year brought no relief from the violence that had defined 2024 — if anything, the pace of killing and displacement was accelerating.
The UN Human Rights office reported that between July 2024 and February 2025, at least 4,239 people had been killed and 1,356 injured in gang violence — an average of more than 500 deaths per month. Among the most shocking single incidents was a massacre in Cité Soleil in which 207 people were executed over five days, one of the deadliest single episodes of gang violence in Haiti’s modern history.
The Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission had only 416 officers deployed as of early December 2024 — far below the authorized 2,500 — due to persistent funding shortfalls and logistical challenges. The mission had conducted joint patrols with the Haitian National Police and contributed to some localized security improvements, but its scale was wholly inadequate to address the scope of criminal territorial control across the capital.
The transitional government under new Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé was still finding its footing after the removal of Garry Conille in November 2024. The Transitional Presidential Council, whose mandate was set to expire in February 2026, faced mounting pressure to demonstrate governance effectiveness on security, humanitarian response, and electoral organization in an increasingly narrow timeframe.