The United Nations reported that criminal groups had killed over 1,100 people and injured nearly 700 others in Haiti in just the first two months of 2024, confirming that the year was on track to surpass even the catastrophic violence of 2023. The pace of killing — averaging more than 550 deaths per month — was among the highest rates of lethal violence anywhere in the Western Hemisphere and reflected the ongoing expansion of gang territorial conflict across Port-au-Prince and beyond.
The figures were drawn from reports by the Haitian National Human Rights Defense Network and UN monitoring, with the caveat that actual casualties were likely higher given the significant underreporting in areas under complete gang control where no external observers could access. Communities in gang-controlled neighborhoods were unable to safely report incidents, and bodies in contested areas sometimes went uncounted for weeks.
The early 2024 violence was connected to the preparations for the Viv Ansanm offensive that would explode at the end of February. Gang networks that had been consolidating their coalition were testing and expanding their positions, clearing obstacles to the coordinated assault they were planning, and acquiring additional weapons and fighters in anticipation of the major offensive.
Humanitarian organizations monitoring conditions in the capital described communities living in a state of permanent crisis, with no sense of when or whether conditions might improve. People who had survived years of incremental deterioration found themselves facing a qualitative escalation that exceeded their capacity to adapt or absorb. The psychological toll of living under sustained mortal threat without any prospect of relief was itself a humanitarian emergency that received far less attention than the physical casualties.