The UN Security Council has agreed to a one-year extension of sanctions against gang leaders in Haiti, where spiraling violence has overwhelmed the police force.
The sanctions include a ban on weapon sales to the gang leaders, freezing of their assets and a restriction on their travel outside the Caribbean country.
The resolution, passed by a vote of 13-2 with China and Russia abstaining, extends restrictions that were first passed last October.
Only one gang chief is formally named by the resolution: Jimmy Cherizier, nicknamed Barbecue, who leads an alliance that calls itself the G9 Family and Allies.
Kenyan-led peacekeeping mission
The renewed sanctions come after the recent approval by the Security Council of a Kenyan-led support force to try to help Haiti's outgunned police force restore some semblance of order and eventually prepare the country for elections – which were last held in 2016.
Frantz Elbe, who has led the Haitian National Police for two years, told AFP in an email interview this month that the gangs are so powerful, saying it is like fighting an urban guerrilla force.
The gangs control about 80% of the capital Port-au-Prince and have "military grade weapons and connections with mafia networks, transnational criminals and major financial resources," he said.
