Seven years after the last United Nations peacekeepers departed amid warnings they would soon be back, Haiti is now officially asking for their return.

Leslie Voltaire, the current president of the Transitional Presidential Council, wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres asking that the current Multinational Security Support mission, being led by Kenya, be transformed into an official U.N. peacekeeping mission, citing the urgency of Haiti’s situation.

The letter from Voltaire, a member of Fanmi Lavalas, a political party that has long derided foreign intervention in Haiti, serves as an official request from the Haitian government. His predecessor, former Sen. Edgard LeBlanc Fils, endorsed the idea while addressing the U.N. General Assembly last month, but his speech had not been shared beforehand with his colleagues on the presidential council.

The U.S., which has been pushing for the peacekeepers plan, was forced last month to drop the proposal from a resolution authorizing the current international security force in the country for another year, after opposition from Russia and China. It is still unclear whether the two nations, which routinely speak of the failings of past U.N. missions in Haiti, will endorse the plan now that Haiti is asking for it.

“The security situation has continued to deteriorate in Port-au-Prince while the Artibonite region, which has a low police presence, has encountered increasing levels of gang violence,” Guterres told the Security Council in his latest report on the situation in Haiti.

“Gang violence spread from the capital to various departments of the country,” the secretary-general said in the report. “On the southern end of the capital, in the outer communes of Carrefour, Gressier, Petit-Goâve and Léogane, gangs have established control over the main access roads.”

Guterres’ representative in Port-au-Prince said Tuesday in a meeting before the U.N. Security Council that the attacks are happening on land and on the sea.

“Personnel of international cargo freight companies have been kidnapped, causing international freight companies to suspend services to Haiti,” said María Isabel Salvador, the head of the U.N. Integrated Office in Haiti. “Over the last five days various areas of Port-au-Prince ... have been consistently attacked by different gang groups of the Viv Ensemble alliance.” Earlier this year, the powerful gang coalition tried to overthrow the government and in recent days has continued to attack neighborhoods including Tabarre, where the U.S. Embassy is located.

The most egregious attack, in the town of Pont-Sondé, which left at least 115 people dead including children, highlights “the insecurity in which Haitians are forced to live and has further exacerbated the humanitarian crisis,” Salvador said. “This horrific event, which shocked the country, drove thousands of residents to flee their homes, seeking refuge in other areas and is yet another reminder of the deepening insecurity that continues to wreak havoc on the daily lives of Haitians.”

She noted that gangs continue to control key access roads, which has made the humanitarian crisis worse. According to the latest report, the number of Haitians forced to leave their homes in the last three months has increased by 22%, bringing the total of internally displaced people to more than 700,000. Meanwhile, only 20% of the health facilities in the capital and 40% of the others around the country are operational.

During the council meeting Salvador and others stressed that despite some pledges to a U.N. Trust Fund for the multinational security force, the mission remains critically underfinanced, which is preventing the police and the Kenya-led mission from being able to fight the gangs effectively.

Haiti’s representative to the U.N., Antonio Rodrigue, said the need for financial support is urgent. The country’s hospitals, he said, are on the brink of collapse and almost half of the country’s 12 million people is suffering from acute hunger.

That’s why the Haitian government is asking the Security Council “to look favorably” on Voltaire’s request for a peacekeeping force.

“A transformation of the (Multinational Security Support) mission to a U.N. peacekeeping operation would secure more stable funding and expand the mission’s capabilities,” Dorothy Camille Shea, deputy U.S. Representative to the U.N., said. “The United States, with Ecuador, stands ready to work with this Council and its members to heed Haiti’s call and to urgently transition the MSS mission to a U.N. peacekeeping operation.”

Security Council members did not discuss the request, but instead stressed the need for Haiti to continue to work to restore security in order to organize elections. The representatives of the Russian Federation and Switzerland, which is presiding over the council this month, expressed fears that the growing tensions among the country’s warring factions and between the presidential council and Prime Minister Garry Conille may once again lead to political paralysis and worsen an already dire situation.

“Now is not the time for political infighting. Now is the time for Haitian national unity in the international fight against the gangs,” Shea said, echoing earlier comments made by Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols, who took to X ahead of the meeting to announce the U.S.’s support for Conille and his cabinet in restoring security and preparing the country for elections.

Robert Alvarez, the foreign minister of the Dominican Republic, used an appearance before the council to defend his nation’s recent policy to deport as many as 10,000 Haitians a week. “Our government cannot accept this senseless call to halt” the deportations, he said. He later added that the Dominican government doesn’t see how elections can’t take place under current conditions and by the time frame set for the end of next year.

There are 416 security personnel in Haiti from Kenya, Jamaica, Belize and The Bahamas, which deployed six members of its Defense Force to Port-au-Prince on Friday. They are, however, a mere fraction of the expected 2,500 personnel who are supposed to be deployed to Haiti to help the police fight gangs.

While Kenya President William Ruto has said another 600 people are currently being trained, his representative to the U.N. said Tuesday that their arrival in Port-au-Prince will depend on the availability of funds.

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