US freezes funding contributions to Haiti multinational security force: UN

By AFP

The United States has frozen its financial contributions to a United Nations fund for a multinational security support mission in Haiti, a UN spokesperson said, a move that would stop $13.3 million in pending aid.

"We received an official notification from the US asking for an immediate stop work order on their contribution" to the trust fund for the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, Stephane Dujarric, the UN secretary-general's spokesperson, said Tuesday, referring to the already underfunded Kenya-led force.

The UN Security Council gave the green light in October 2023 to the MSS mission designed to support Haiti's authorities in their fight against criminal gangs, which control swaths of the country.

Washington's funding freeze comes as part of President Donald Trump's push to slash US overseas aid, a drive that has included an effort to shutter the operations of the government's main aid agency, USAID.

In late January, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that Haiti's capital could become overrun by gangs if the international community did not step up aid to the security mission.

More money, equipment and personnel were needed for the international force, Guterres said, adding that any further delays risked the "catastrophic" collapse of Haiti's security institutions and "could allow gangs to overrun the entire metropolitan area" of the capital Port-au-Prince.

Haiti's Foreign Minister Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste, speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council, has said the country faced "major difficulties" that threaten not just the population but also "the very survival of the state."

The MSS is not a UN force, but the United Nations has set up a voluntary fund to finance it, which has raised $110 million to date, an amount that has been deemed largely insufficient.

Just under 800 of the 2,500 security personnel hoped for have been deployed.

The United States had transferred $15 million to the fund -- the second-largest contribution, after Canada's $63 million -- with $1.7 million already disbursed.

Kenya's principal secretary for foreign affairs Korir Sing'Oei said the fund had so far received $83 million from several pledged countries, "including substantial amounts from the United States."

"While undisbursed US contribution to the Trust Fund of $15 million has been paused as per presidential directive, the Fund has sufficient resources to continue underwriting the Mission until end of September 2025," he said Wednesday in a post on social media platform X.

In parallel with the UN-hosted fund, the United States, then headed by Joe Biden, had contributed more than $300 million in funds and equipment directly to the MSS, including dozens of armored vehicles.

Haiti currently has no president or parliament and is ruled by a transitional body, which is struggling to manage extreme violence linked to criminal gangs, poverty and other challenges.

More than 5,626 people were killed in Haiti last year as a result of gang violence, about a thousand more than in 2023, the UN said.

More than a million Haitians have been forced to flee their homes, three times as many as a year ago.