Every kind of gun is flooding into Port-au-Prince. Haitians are blaming the US.

“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.

  • Flying Squid
    20•8 months ago

    But I keep being told that an armed society is a polite society!

      • Flying Squid
        10•8 months ago

        I can’t think of a real-world example of that.

            • @[email protected]English
              2•8 months ago

              Still, seems like an improvement on the path humanity was on of having periodic global bloodbaths over individual human egos and the nationalism others attach to it. We still have bloodbaths over those issues, don’t get me wrong, just smaller scale overall.

              • @bhmnscmm
                1•8 months ago

                It works until it doesn’t. Then we all face annihilation.

        • @oursEnglish
          2•8 months ago

          And nobody please mention Switzerland as an example. Yes, we have lots of guns but they aren’t meant for self-defense outside some very narrow exceptions. Thankfully we can trust our police to do their work and they are usually very well trained.

    • @SupraMario
      9•8 months ago

      Considering only the gangs have guns here…not really an armed society is it?