“All the guns here are from the US, everybody knows it. If the US wants to stop this, they could easily do it one month!” He pleads: “We are asking the US to give us a chance to live, just give us a chance.”
For a country that does not manufacture weapons, a UN report in January found every type of gun was flooding Port-au-Prince: high-powered rifles such as AK47s, 9mm pistols, sniper rifles and machine guns.
The weapons are fuelling the staggering surge in Haiti’s gang-related violence.
There is no exact number for how many trafficked firearms are currently in Haiti.
The UN report said some estimates put it at half a million legal and illegal weapons here as of 2020.
It reported that guns and ammunition were being smuggled in from land, air and sea from US states such as Florida, Texas and Georgia.
They “demanded freedom from slavery”, and then shortly afterwards engaged in slave raids in what is today the Dominican Republic.
That’s literally the opposite of what happened.
Once Haiti declared independence, they invaded Santo Domingo, effectively ending Spanish occupation of that part of the island. Slavery ended up being abolished by default once the Spanish were removed in 1822.
They also invaded SD because they were afraid Spain would invade them first.