Evens Sanon | Associated Press

Haitian police officers are demanding better protection and treatment after gunmen killed a Kenyan officer who was part of a U.N.-backed mission tasked with fighting gangs.

The U.N. Human Rights Office said that the number of killings increased by more than 20% compared with all of 2023. In addition, more than 2,200 people were reported injured and nearly 1,500 kidnapped.

Police in Haiti’s capital tear-gassed hundreds of peaceful protesters in the capital, Port-au-Prince, as they called on law enforcement to help them stop the gangs that have violently seized control of their neighborhoods.

Haiti’s newly selected Prime Minister Garry Conille and Haiti’s police chief visited the capital’s largest hospital, after authorities said they took control of the medical institution over the weekend from armed gangs.

The one-page warrant contains little detail except to say that authorities are seeking to interview Martine Moïse about the case. It does not state nor suggest any involvement.

The U.N. says gangs are invading Haiti’s rural central region and suffocating a once peaceful area that served as the country’s food basket but that is now plagued by kidnappings, killings and rapes.

Fontaine Hospital Center in the Cite Soleil slum has been considered an oasis in a community overrun by gangs that have unleashed increasingly violent attacks against each other and civilians.

Haiti’s government has banned all charter flights to Nicaragua that migrants fleeing poverty and violence had been increasingly using in their quest to reach the United States.

Vigilante killings are surging across Haiti’s capital and beyond. Another five men were slain and set on fire Tuesday by a crowd that left one of the bodies near a police station in an upscale community.

Police and witnesses say the mob in the Port-au-Prince beat and burned the men to death with gasoline-soaked tires after pulling them from police custody at a traffic stop.

Hundreds of Haitians are flocking daily to the sole immigration office in Port-au-Prince to secure a passport in hopes they will soon be chosen to live legally in the U.S. under a new immigration plan.

The United States and Mexico said Monday they are preparing a U.N. resolution that would authorize an international mission to help improve security in Haiti, whose government issued a “distress call” for the people of the crisis-wracked nation.