Haiti without a state

Haiti has had no elected official of any kind since early 2023 and no president since the last one was shot dead in his bedroom in July 2021. An alliance of armed groups controls most of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the roads out of it. More than a million people have fled their homes and several thousand are killed each year. A transitional council installed with Caribbean and American support gave way in February 2026 to a prime minister governing alone. A foreign force approved by the United Nations Security Council is arriving slowly. The authorities also fight with armed drones operated with an American private contractor. Elections have been promised and postponed every year.

Where it stands · September 2026

On 15 September 2026 the United States ended Temporary Protected Status for thousands of Haitians, exposing them to deportation.

What the dispute is about

Who may govern. Nobody holding power in Haiti was elected to it. The prime minister was chosen by a council that was itself chosen by foreign mediators and Haitian parties. The armed groups demand his removal. Parties and civic groups demand a say and cannot agree among themselves.

Force. Haiti's police number a few thousand. Foreign missions have come and gone since 1994, and the last large one left behind a cholera epidemic. The present plan relies on a multinational force and on explosive drones flown into crowded districts.

Where the guns and money come from. Haiti makes no firearms; nearly all are smuggled from the United States. United Nations sanctions reports name Haitian politicians and businessmen who armed the groups they now cannot control.

How each side explains it

The account of the Haitian authorities and their foreign backers

Criminal organisations listed as terrorists by the United States hold a capital city hostage by murder, rape and kidnapping. No election can be held until voters can reach a polling station alive. The police, the new international force and the drone unit have pushed the gangs out of several districts and killed some of their leaders. The transition is imperfect and is the only legal authority there is; it needs money and troops, not another change of government.

In our coverage

The internationally-backed campaign against Haiti's gangs is making halting progress →6 headlines
Covered by:France 24 · France 24 (EN)

The armed groups' account

Their alliance, whose name means "living together", presents itself as a revolution of the poor districts against a handful of families who own the ports and the politicians, and against foreign powers that have chosen Haiti's rulers for a century. Its spokesman, a former policeman, says the young men with guns were armed by those same elites and then discarded. It demands the prime minister's departure and a place in any negotiation, and says foreign troops will be treated as invaders.

What each account leaves out

The authorities' and backers' leaves out that members of the transitional council were accused of demanding bribes and none was tried; that the area outside state control grew during their two years; that the guns come from Florida and Washington has done little to stop them; and that the United States is sending Haitians back into the conditions it cites to justify the force.

The armed groups' leaves out the killings of the poor they claim to defend, among them about two hundred mostly elderly people killed in one district over a weekend in December 2024; the kidnapping, extortion and rape that pay for the revolution; and that their leaders served the politicians they now denounce for as long as it paid.

Civil society's leaves out that its own coalitions split and could not agree on a candidate or a calendar when they had the chance, and that without armed force of some kind nobody can now enter the districts to hold the inquiry or the election they call for.

The ledger

The authorities

Wanted: the capital back and an election.
Gained: some districts, and a Security Council mandate.
Paid: neither goal reached, and hundreds killed by their own drones.

The armed groups

Wanted: by their own account a revolution, by everyone else's account impunity and a share of power.
Gained: most of the capital.
Paid: fighters killed by the hundred, and a terrorist listing that rules out the amnesty they seek.

The foreign backers

Wanted: stability without sending their own soldiers.

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

gangs / armed groups / revolutionary forces
terrorists
transition
intervention / assistance
extrajudicial killings / operations
the oligarchs
Haitian-led solution

Events per week

Per-week distribution of events. Click a bar to see that week's top events.

Click a week bar to select. Light blue = active week.

Week of Sep 14, 2026(3)

For thousands of Haitians in the U.S., end of protected status brings fear, grief and defiance

2 sourcesSep 15, 2026

Back to school in Haiti: ‘Madame, can you stop what the gangs are doing to us?’

1 sourcesSep 15, 2026

Trinidad and Tobago arrests over 5,300 in gang crackdown

1 sourcesSep 18, 2026