A UN report released in connection with Security Council discussions in 2024 estimated that as many as half a million weapons were in circulation in Haiti, with more than 80 percent of those traceable to the United States — manufactured in American factories, sold through American gun dealers, and trafficked through Florida ports to Haitian gang networks. The report provided the most comprehensive documented picture yet of the scale of Haiti’s weapons problem and its American origins.
The figure of half a million weapons in a country of 11 million people — one weapon for every 22 Haitians — illustrated the degree to which the security crisis was being sustained by a seemingly unlimited supply of firearms. Gang networks that might otherwise have been challenged by security forces were invincible against an under-equipped police force when they possessed assault rifles, ammunition, and the logistical capacity to replace weapons and fighters as needed.
The trafficking pipeline described in the UN report was specific and documented: straw purchases at Florida gun dealers, container shipment through Miami ports, distribution through criminal networks with connections on both sides of the Caribbean. US law enforcement had intercepted some shipments but the scale of successful trafficking was vastly greater than what had been interdicted.
Human rights organizations and Haitian civil society groups used the report to press the United States for specific and urgent action to address the weapons trafficking pipeline. They called for enhanced inspections of Haiti-bound containers at Florida ports, stricter oversight of gun dealers in Florida, and dedicated law enforcement resources for the trafficking network. The connection between American gun availability and Haitian gang arsenals was, they argued, an American responsibility that American policy had not adequately addressed.