Vigilante Justice in Haiti?
Today's blog is not one of positivity for what is going on in Haiti, it is simply an update on the country. The bottom line: It is still not good. Here are the 3 most recent headlines I saw regarding Haiti from some major news sources:
- Haitian vigilantes kill, set fire to 5 more suspected gangsters
- Thousands try to flee Haiti as gangs terrorize innocent civilians
- Haiti ‘dangling over an abyss’, UN human rights chief says
From the outside looking in, it can seem hopeless and very frustrating. We talk to our people almost every day, but it is difficult to even begin to imagine the difficulties they are facing.
How hopeless and frustrating must it be to live there?
We see headlines in the news describing a desperate situation. Haitians wake up every single day to chaos and a disrupted life that seems to never improve.
We hear in the news that citizens are taking matters into their own hands in what news outlets are calling "vigilante justice." So many Haitians live in fear every single day. Kidnappings and murders are reality and they have to decide to sit back and wait for violence to find them or to proactively fight against it, and that fight is against well-armed miniature militias.
The head of the UN office in Haiti said there were 1,674 homicides, rapes, kidnappings and lynchings in the first 3 months of 2023. That many instances of those heinous crimes in a country whose population is only about 10 million.
Also, as bad as 2022 was, there were only 692 reported incidents of those crimes during the same quarter of last year, and these are only the ones reported to a defunct police force.
You may have heard in the news that Haitian citizens have begun trying to fight back against gang violence by taking matters into their own hands. You cannot blame them, but then the manner in which they are fighting back is just as brutal as the methods that gangs have been using all along.
Then I think about this...If, just to pull Haiti from the brink of total chaos and unrest, it would take more than we can even begin to imagine...then, what is it going to take to make Haiti a working state?
What will it take to create functioning state institutions in Haiti rather than centers of greed and corruption that do nothing more than perpetuate violence and evil?
This blog was basically just a chance to vent some frustrations and to discuss the heinous situation that our kids wake up to every single day, and it breaks my heart for them.
It is no secret, Haiti is struggling, and the country needs our prayers, please join me in doing just that.