Haiti has declared a three-month state of emergency in its central region, where relentless gang violence is choking the nation’s agricultural heartland. The decree covers the West, Artibonite and Center departments, aiming to confront insecurity and an escalating agricultural and food crisis, officials said.
Once known as Haiti’s rice basket, the region has suffered brutal assaults, with armed groups killing farmers, burning homes and forcing entire communities to flee. United Nations figures reveal that between October 2024 and June 2025, over 1,000 people were killed, more than 200 injured and 620 kidnapped.
Violence has displaced over 239,000 people, driving many to wade across the nation’s largest river in desperate escapes from marauding gangs. In response, the government replaced police chief Normil Rameau with André Jonas Vladimir Paraison, a veteran officer and former head of National Palace security.
Rameau, criticised for failing to stem violence in gang-controlled Port-au-Prince, had long warned of chronic underfunding crippling Haiti’s security forces. Paraison’s tenure begins alongside Kenyan-led, U.N.-backed police deployments tasked with breaking gang dominance that has paralysed large swaths of the country.
These shifts come as businessman Laurent Saint-Cyr assumes leadership of Haiti’s transitional presidential council, mandated to oversee elections by February 2026. For many in the battered heartland, the emergency measures carry both hope and doubt, as the fight for Haiti’s survival deepens.
