BLACK activists demanded an end to interference in Haiti, as the United Nations special envoy to the troubled Caribbean island called for the deployment of an international military force to counter escalating gang violence.

Maria Isabel Salvador, who took over the UN job earlier this month, warned the security council on Wednesday that delays in sending a force to the island could lead to a spillover of insecurity in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Ms Salvador told the security council that gang violence in the western hemisphere’s poorest country is expanding at an alarming rate in areas previously considered safe in and outside the capital, Port-au-Prince. 

Criminal incidents, murders, rapes, kidnappings and lynchings have more than doubled to 1,647 in the first quarter of 2023 from 692 in the same period in 2022.

Ms Salvador stressed that without restoring a minimum level of security, it is impossible to move forward towards elections on the island.

But the United States and Canada again showed no interest in leading a force and neither did any member of the security council.

She told reporters afterward that she was disappointed that no country has offered to lead a force since UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres issued an urgent appeal last October at the request of Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was appointed to the post after the assassination of president Jovenel Moise in July 2021.

But on Wednesday, Black Alliance for Peace slammed the attempts by the UN to interfere in Haiti.

The group said: “The crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism, a crisis initiated in 2004 by the US, France and Canada and consecrated by the UN.

“No decision about Haiti should be made by those who not only do not represent the people, but have also consistently harmed them.”

It demanded “respect for the sovereign rights of the Haitian people and no more interference in Haiti.”