Haiti Confirms Hiring Mercenaries To Fight Gangs But Won't Say How Much It's Paying

The head of Haiti's transitional council admitted that authorities have hired mercenaries to help them fight against armed gangs that control most of the country.

Speaking to Haitian journalist, Fritz Alphonse Jean said "when there is a weakness, we look for other people to support the national police." He declined to say how much those hired are being paid but detailed that "the resources that are being poured in are that of the population," according to the Miami Herald. He did not confirm nor deny that the amount was $44 million.

The transitional government has hired U.S. military contractor Erik Prince to help its forces. He had been scouting Haitian American military veterans to hire and send to Port-au-Prince to aid forces there, with previous reports noting that he expected to send to send up to 150 mercenaries to the country over the summer and had already shipped a large amount of weapons there.

"What I can assure everyone is with this level of violence compounded by what they call transnational criminality .... it is simply not true that our security forces can confront these challenges alone," Jean added in another passage of the conversation.

The outlet noted that the admission comes as the council struggles to move forward with its main task, paving the way to hold presidential elections next year. At the same time, the Trump administration has warned it can't continue financing most of the armed mission led by Kenya.

Gangs are increasingly closing in on the last neighborhood they don't control in the capital, Port-au-Prince, with only a band of self-defense groups led by a police officer standing between them and the transitional government.

The situation has caused for violence against children to increase by 500% over the past year, making Haiti one of the most dangerous places in the world, according to a new UN report.

Concretely, the UN's Children in Armed Conflict report said the country is now as dangerous for children as Gaza, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Nigeria.

It claimed that the country's most powerful gang coalition, Viv Ansamn, is responsible for much of the increase, recounting widespread cases of killing and raping as they keep gaining ground across the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the rest of the country.

The report went on to say it has verified over 2,260 grave violations against 1,373 children in Port-au-Prince and the Artibonite region. including sexual violence, killings and attacks on schools and hospitals.

A UN official told the Miami Herald that figures are just the verified incidents, but they are likely much higher. "The UN has very little presence in there. The harbor doesn't work. The airport doesn't work. The border is closed," the official said.

"We simply cannot get the full impact of what is happening in Haiti, but we know it's horrific enough that it is already providing horrendous figures with the little information that we're able to get now," the official added.