Death from above: Drones take aim at gangs in Haiti

The archetypal "kamikaze" drone killed 8 children and 3 civilian adults astatine a day party. The 2nd reportedly killed 4 pack members. This is Haiti today: government-sanctioned drone strikes, pack unit and, increasingly, the US authorities and backstage US information firms moving in.

Who carried retired the drone onslaught connected the Cite Soleil slum connected September 20, 2025 is unclear. Was it the section police? Or Vectus Global, led by Erik Prince, the American laminitis of Blackwater? Or immoderate different information contractor? Vectus Global did not respond to a petition for remark from Al Jazeera.

What is wide is that Haiti’s existent descent into chaos began with President Jovenel Moise’s assassination successful 2021. With nary functioning parliament astatine the time, Moise had led mostly by decree. The deficiency of a wide law successor helped make a powerfulness vacuum, filled by convulsive gangs.

In October 2023, the UN Security Council voted to nonstop a Kenyan-led unit to combat the Haitian gangs. Undermanned, they mostly failed against gangs heavy equipped with weapons trafficked from the US.

Then successful aboriginal 2024, Haiti’s interim authorities collapsed nether the value of an violative by a conjugation of gangs known arsenic Viv Ansanm.

And present US information firms person stepped in. According to The New York Times, Vectus Global has a woody with the Haitian authorities to "conduct lethal operations". Vectus has reportedly carried retired drone strikes since March 2025, but hasn’t announced "the decease oregon seizure of a azygous high-value target".

The National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) successful Haiti says drones killed "more than 300 pack members" betwixt March and mid-June 2025. The June 12 study by the RNDDH does not code civilian casualties.

On September 30, the UNSC voted to make a bigger, much assertive unit to "neutralise, isolate and deter" gangs. The alleged "gang suppression force" of 5,500 military, constabulary and civilian unit is much than 5 times bigger than the existent force.

Today, Haitians are forced to endure a warfare waged against the gangs that inhabit their neighbourhoods. But the kamikaze drone violative has truthful acold failed, according to the RNDDH, with "no country ... permanently reclaimed". In a June 12, 2025 report, the RNDDH besides said, "It indispensable beryllium recognised that these [drone] operations stay ineffective to date."