By Sarah Morland
Jan 22 (Reuters) - A U.N.-backed security force deployed to Haiti to help local police fight off armed gangs that have taken over much of the country should reach its new full-strength by summer, the U.N.'s special envoy for Haiti said on Thursday.
The announcement comes amid political uncertainty in the Caribbean nation ahead of February 7, when the current transition government's mandate ends. No official succession plan has been put forward.
U.N. envoy Carlos Ruiz said more troops
should arrive by April and that the force should reach its full strength - envisioned at 5,500 troops - by the this summer, or autumn at latest.
Around 1,000 mostly Kenyan police are currently in Haiti as part of the force, whose deployment has been marked by delays and severe lack of funding. Since the first deployment in June 2024, gangs have expanded to much of central and rural Haiti.
By comparison, Haiti's police and the numbers of armed group members in the country are estimated at around 12,000 each, with large amounts of guns and ammunition trafficked to criminal groups largely from the U.S.
Ruiz spoke after reports of a majority of members of Haiti's transitional presidential council, the CPT - effectively its top executive - moved to oust the prime minister days before their mandate ends next month.
If successful, this would be the CPT's second ouster of a prime minister since appointed in April 2024. Their term has been marked by political infighting and corruption accusations, while worsening insecurity has repeatedly pushed back the likelihood of holding the country's first election in a decade.
"The country cannot spare more internal fighting," Ruiz said. "The current authorities should still make use of the couple weeks they have to do whatever they can to benefit the country."
If stakeholders do not agree on a plan for after February 7, Ruiz said, "we know the constitution provides for the prime minister to continue if that's the case, and we need an authority and a government that is stable enough."
US WARNING
None of Haiti's CPT members have publicly commented on the reported attempt to oust Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau on Thursday warned against taking that step, saying such a measure by non-elected CPT members so close to the end of their tenure would undermine U.S. goals of security in Haiti.
"The U.S. would consider anyone supporting such a disruptive step favoring the gangs to be acting contrary to the interests of the United States, the region, and the Haitian people and will act accordingly," Landau said on X.
Haitian gangs have killed thousands and taken control of most of the capital Port-au-Prince, expanded to central Haiti and its agricultural heartlands, carried out multiple massacres, mass rapes, ransom kidnappings and arson. Some 1.4 million people have been internally displaced by the conflict.
(Reporting by Sarah Morland in Mexico City and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Editing by Franklin Paul and Bill Berkrot)
