(AFP) – The United States announced on Wednesday $160 million of new aid for Haiti where an international security mission has been deployed to battle the gangs ravaging the country. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Port-au-Prince in early September, made the announcement at a ministerial meeting about Haiti on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
The aid is earmarked for security efforts, as well as economic development and health projects, the US State Department said in a statement. The pledge brings the amount of US aid to the troubled Caribbean country to $1.3 billion since 2021.
“We’re nowhere near winning this. And the simple reality is we (won’t) without your help,” said Garry Conille, Haiti’s interim prime minister. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has previously criticized the lack of cash for the Kenyan-led multinational policing mission in Haiti, calling it “unacceptable.”
The trust fund for the mission now stands at $85.3 million, Guterres said. “However, funding for the mission, and for the Haitian National Police, remains totally inadequate,” he said in a statement. “I urge all those who have made financial commitments to deliver on them urgently.”
The coordinator of Haiti’s transitional council, Edgard Leblanc Fils, said his country still needed “much more in terms of personnel and also equipment to be able to solve the security problems and allow elections to take place.”
Washington also announced sanctions against two Haitians. Prophane Victor, a former parliament member, was sanctioned for his role in “forming, supporting and arming” and backing the island nation’s notorious gangs, the Treasury Department said in a statement. And Luckson Elan, the current leader of the “Gran Grif” gang, was designated for his involvement in “serious human rights abuse related to gang activity.”
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