By Sarah Morland
July 21 (Reuters) - U.S. security officials are planning for closer ties with a private military company in Haiti run by Erik Prince, a close ally of President Donald Trump, a top U.S. military adviser told Congress on Tuesday, as rights groups raise alarm over civilian deaths from drone strikes linked to the firm.
Prince is the founder of now-defunct private military firm Blackwater, some of whose members were pardoned in 2020 for killing Iraqi civilians. His contractors have since
been involved in Ecuador and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Prince's company Vectus Global has been operating in Haiti since March 2025, using drones deployed through Haiti's government-run Task Force to target powerful armed gangs that have seized large swaths of the country.
Human Rights Watch estimates 1,243 people were killed by drone strikes in 141 operations between March 2025 and January 2026, including 43 civilian adults and 17 children, with a further 738 people injured, including 49 civilians. The rights group found that the number of operations and the death toll increased substantially between October and January.
The U.S. Department of Defense's Colonel Justin Gorkowski, who co-leads an oversight team for the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) — a U.N.-backed security force mandated to help police fight gangs — told the hearing Haiti's Task Force was "a tremendous partner" and a Task Force officer would be embedded in the joint operations center next week.
"We have coordination, informally, at all levels of command, with Vectus Global and the Haitian Task Force, but this will formalize that agreement partnership," he said, noting there was currently no operational overlap. "In the future, of course, as we shut down the gangs, that partnership will get closer."
The United States helps fund the GSF and the Haitian police. GSF said earlier this month it coordinates exclusively with Haiti's police and armed forces.
The State Department, Vectus Global and GSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Gorkowski said he was unaware of specific civilian death tolls but that his team did everything it could to mitigate the risks. Michael Kozak, a senior U.S. bureau official for Western Hemisphere affairs who also testified, said the U.S. relied on human rights organizations for casualty reports.
"This is a war situation, and unfortunately, that's a reality for the situation we find ourselves in," Gorkowski said, adding that Task Force strikes were becoming more "discriminant" and were performing an essential function. He said he believed the necessary oversight structures were in place.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters last week U.S. citizens who were working for Vectus in Haiti were not, as foreign government contractors, required to disclose their activities and the U.S. government had no oversight over Vectus' operations.
Despite legal concerns over the use of lethal force, the drone strikes have been welcomed in some quarters for putting gangs in the capital Port-au-Prince on the defensive, even as gang activity has spread outside the capital, displacing tens of thousands more people from their homes.
Haiti's government contracted Prince's company amid worsening security despite the arrival of an initial Kenyan-led U.N.-backed mission, which struggled with a lack of resources and only ever reached some 40% of its 2,500-troop target before it withdrew early this year. The more military-oriented GSF aims to reach 5,500 troops by fall.
Gorkowski said troops who joined the GSF from Chad would be responsible for the West Department, home to Port-au-Prince; Sri Lanka for the agricultural region of Artibonite, which has seen some of the worst violence; and Ivory Coast, when it deploys, would cover Haiti's Center Department.
Bangladesh is in "good shape for deployment", he added, predicting the GSF would "only just be hitting our stride" when its mandate comes up for renewal in October.
(Reporting by Sarah Morland and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Nia Williams)
