First foreign troop in new gang suppression force lands in Haiti to replace previous mission

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The first foreign troop tied to a new gang-suppression force backed by the United Nations has arrived in Haiti to help quell ongoing violence, according to a statement issued Wednesday.

A team from the central African country of Chad are in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, as is Jack Christofides, the force’s special representative, who was deployed at the request of the Haitian government, according to an official statement posted on the new force’s X account.

No other details were provided, and a spokesperson for the force did not return a message seeking additional information.

The Chadian team arrived after U.N. officials met with Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé to talk about the partnership with the U.N. Support Office in Haiti, which is providing the new force with living and office space, medical care, rations, water, power, fuel, ground mobility, aviation and other critical assistance.

The U.N. Security Council in late September approved a plan to authorize a 5,550-member force expected to transform a Kenya-led multinational force in Haiti that remained understaffed and underfunded while it was in operation, with some 1,000 personnel out of the 2,500 envisioned.

The gang-suppression force will have the power to arrest suspected gang members, which the previous force did not have.

Gangs control an estimated 90% of Haiti’s capital and swaths of land in the country’s central region.

More than 5,500 people were reported killed across Haiti and more than 2,600 injured from March 1, 2025 to Jan. 15, 2026, according to the latest U.N. statistics. Gang violence also has displaced more than 1.4 million people in a country of nearly 12 million.