By Sarah Morland
(Reuters) – Colombian President Gustavo Petro arrived in the southeastern Haitian city of Jacmel on Wednesday afternoon in a rare visit by a foreign head of state to the Caribbean country as Haiti endures a prolonged conflict with armed gangs.
Colombia has also faced a wave of violence by rebel factions that has halted peace talks.
Petro arrived in the small coastal town some 90 km (55 miles) from the capital Port-au-Prince on a Colombian military plane hours after the visit was expected to begin, where hundreds of residents turned out to see his arrival.
Petro had a stopover in the Dominican Republic, bypassing the conflict-ridden capital of Haiti, where several shootings of diplomatic vehicles have been reported this week alone.
He met with top Haitian government officials, including Leslie Voltaire, who holds the rotating presidency of the Transitional Presidential Council, in an engagement aimed at strengthening bilateral ties.
Voltaire said he wanted to encourage closer ties with South American nations in a bid to bolster security support as a UN-backed security mission fails to stem the advance of gangs in the country.
The gangs, since the mission was approved in late 2023, have seized strategic territories resulting in repeated closures of the capital’s main port and airport and worsening food shortages that have left half of the country’s 11 million people starving.
The number of internally displaced people has more than quintupled to over 1 million from around 200,000 before the United Nations Security Council approved the partially deployed mission.
Also on Wednesday, the UN Security Council met for a briefing on the conflict, where several nations called for tougher measures to curb the ongoing illegal flow of firearms, mostly from the United States, to Haiti’s now widely-connected criminal organizations.
Haitian Foreign Minister Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste reiterated calls for the mission, which he said is “grossly underfunded” and lacks key air and naval capabilities, to be turned into an official UN peacekeeping mission to be less dependent on voluntary contributions.
“We are very much looking forward to other contributions that have been promised for a long time,” he said. “Haiti cannot overcome this crisis alone. That is why we are asking for more resources to stabilize our security.”
Over 200,000 migrants from Haiti were deported back to the country last year.
