A new United Nations quarterly human rights report released in early May 2026 has painted a grim portrait of persistent insecurity across Haiti, confirming that more than 1,600 people were killed in gang-related and violence-linked deaths between January and March this year. As documented by the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), the official death toll for the first quarter stands at 1,642, making this the fourth deadliest three-month period recorded in the country since 2022. An additional 745 people sustained injuries in the wave of violence that has gripped the Caribbean nation.
Carlos Ruiz Massieu, who serves as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Haiti and head of BINUH, emphasized that even limited progress in stabilizing parts of the capital has not alleviated the daily suffering of most Haitian citizens. “Despite security advances in certain areas of downtown Port-au-Prince, insecurity is daily and unbearable for a large number of Haitians, and violence continues to spread beyond the capital, particularly in Artibonite and the Centre,” Massieu stated.
Recent operations by Haitian security forces have yielded small gains over the past quarter, building on trends that emerged at the end of 2025. Security pushbacks have slowed the territorial expansion of major armed gangs in the core of Port-au-Prince, and led to a measurable drop in organized criminal activity across several residential neighborhoods of the capital. But these limited gains have done little to curb atrocities in areas that remain under gang control, where armed groups continue to systematically violate basic human rights. Reported abuses include targeted assassinations of community members, widespread kidnapping for ransom, coercive extortion rackets, and deliberate destruction of civilian property.
The violence has increasingly spilled outward from the capital into rural and peri-urban regions, with some of the deadliest attacks recorded in the Artibonite department in late March. Between March 29 and 31, gang fighters launched coordinated, pre-planned assaults on 16 different communities in Lower Artibonite, a region that hosts multiple local self-defense groups formed by residents to protect their neighborhoods from incursions. The attack left at least 83 local residents dead and another 38 injured; witness accounts included harrowing details of victims being dragged from their homes in the middle of the night and executed execution-style in front of their families.
The BINUH report also documented widespread sexual violence perpetrated by gang members against civilian populations over the quarter. In total, investigators confirmed at least 292 cases of sexual abuse, including gang rapes and organized sexual exploitation, with the vast majority of victims being women and adolescent girls between the ages of 12 and 17.
Beyond gang-perpetrated violence, the report also raised serious alarms about alleged abuses by state security actors. BINUH received consistent allegations of summary executions and attempted extrajudicial killings involving members of the Haitian National Police, most of which were documented in specific neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. These alleged incidents have left 33 civilians dead and seven others injured. Following the submission of BINUH’s findings, the Inspector General of the Haitian National Police has launched formal investigations into every documented case.
The full 24-page quarterly report on human rights conditions in Haiti covering January to March 2026 is available for public download via HaitiLibre, the local Haitian news outlet that published the initial report findings.