Kenyan police, who are part of a UN-backed multinational force, pray on the tarmac after landing at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he would request that the United Nations assumes funding for the structural and logistical expenses of a multinational force in Haiti that is struggling to fight violent gangs.

Guterres made the announcement late Wednesday in Barbados, where leaders of a 15-member Caribbean trade bloc known as Caricom gathered for a three-day conference to tackle regional issues, including gang violence in Haiti.

“If the Security Council will accept this proposal, we will have the conditions to finally have an effective force to defeat the gangs in Haiti and create the conditions for democracy to thrive,” Guterres said.

He added that the salaries for the multinational force would be paid through an already existing trust fund.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the proposed support would include logistics and non-lethal equipment, adding that he expects a detailed plan to be submitted by the end of February.

“It will not be a peacekeeping mission. The structure would very likely stay the same,” he said of the current mission.

Dujarric added that Guterres has not changed his stance on considering a U.N. peacekeeping mission as a last resort.

The current U.N.-backed mission is led by a contingent of around 800 Kenyan police joined by soldiers and police from countries including Jamaica, Guatemala and El Salvador who are working alongside Haiti’s National Police.

Last year Haiti and the U.S. warned that the mission that began in June lacks personnel and resources and called for a U.N. peacekeeping mission to replace the current one.

In a statement Thursday, Haiti’s government said that its presidential adviser, Laurent Saint-Cyr, met with Guterres and repeated the country's request for a U.N. peacekeeping force. It added that Haiti's transitional presidential council “remains committed to resolving this crisis and moving towards constitutional reforms, the organization of general elections and responding to humanitarian needs.”

Under the Biden administration, the U.S. contributed some $600 million to the mission. It's unclear if funding would continue under President Donald Trump, although U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said the administration would keep supporting the mission as he urged wealthy nations to contribute more.

No elections held since 2016

As the international community debates options to help Haiti, gangs in recent months have carried out at least four major massacres, killing hundreds of people. Guterres called the situation in Haiti “appalling.”

“Gangs are inflicting intolerable suffering on a desperate and frightened people,” he said. “We must keep working for a political process owned and led by the Haitians that restores democratic institutions through elections.”

But Belgium-based International Crisis Group warned in a new report that it could be dangerous to hold elections prematurely given a surge in gang violence.

Haiti is led by Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé and a nine-member transitional presidential council whose mandate expires on Feb. 7, 2026.

Haiti hasn’t held elections in almost a decade, and no president has been elected since the June 2021 assassination of Jovenel Moïse.

The council has previously pledged to hold elections by February 2026, but critics say that’s an unrealistic goal since gangs that already control 85% of Haiti’s capital are on a renewed rampage to seize more territory.

Council President Leslie Voltaire recently said that he believes Haiti can hold elections on Nov. 15 and runoffs early next year, but in only eight of 10 regions in Haiti that are free of gangs.

Corruption, infighting and the specter of electoral violence

International Crisis Group said the pace of elections depends on funds allocated by the Haitian government and foreign donors, with only $45 million available so far out of an estimated $90 million to $120 million needed.

The group noted that multiple challenges to holding elections persist.

“Partisan infighting and corruption allegations have prolonged political dysfunction,” it said. “Violence rages, with gangs perpetrating some of the worst massacres ever as the understaffed, underfunded foreign mission struggles to rein them in.”

More than 5,600 people were reported killed in Haiti last year, with gang violence displacing more than 1 million Haitians in recent years, according to the U.N.

“Their situation continues to be of major concern to us,” said Mia Amor Mottley, Barbados’ prime minister and Caricom chairperson. “And it’s not going to be sufficient just to be able to say that Haiti will have an election on Nov. 15. It is not going to be sufficient to just stabilize the security situation of Haiti.”

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Associated Press reporter Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

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