Combined with an outbreak of cholera and widespread acute hunger, the crisis led the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Jimmy Chérizier, one of the country's gang leaders.

[18] In 2022, Canada issued sanctions against three wealthy businessmen—Gilbert Bigio,[19] Reynold Deeb, and Sherif Abdallah—whom they accused of "participat[ing] in gross and systematic human rights violations in Haiti" along with numerous politicians including Michel Martelly, Laurent Lamothe, Jean-Henry Céant, Joseph Lambert, and Youri Latortue.

[21] In March 2024, acting prime minister Henry was prevented from returning to Haiti after a trip intended to secure a peace-keeping force of Kenyan police to fight gang violence.

[24] A Senate probe released in November 2017 concerning the 2008–2016 period (the René Préval and Michel Martelly administrations) revealed significant corruption had been funded with Venezuelan loans through the Petrocaribe program.

[25][26] With the departure of the United Nations force in 2017, the power vacuum was occupied by gangs, some of which had been fostered, financed, and even created by Martelly,[21] famous for his 2008 Bandi légal album[27] and his ties to right-wing elements in the police.

[41] Two days later protestors clashed with police, with demonstrators throwing stones at the home of President Moïse, after one of his allies' security personnel struck a woman's car and began to beat her.

[50] During escalating protests on 10 June, journalist Rospide Petion was shot and killed in a company car on his way home from Radio Sans Fin in Port-au-Prince, where he had criticized the government on air before leaving the station.

[62] Peyi lok ("country lockdown")[59] is how the situation was described in Haitian Creole in November 2019 after two and a half months with schools, courts, businesses, public services, and economic production largely shut down.

"[78] On 7 February 2021, supporters of the opposition against incumbent President Moïse allegedly attempted a coup d'état, claiming he should have stepped down five years after the end of Michel Martelly's administration on 7 Feb 2016, despite the year-long delay before he was sworn in in 2017.

[88][89] Thousands of Haitians, including doctors and lawyers, demonstrated peacefully in Port-au-Prince on 7 and 9 March, under the slogan #FreeOurCountry, calling for President Moïse and Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe to resign and a crackdown on kidnappers.

[90][91] The hashtag FreeHaiti led opposition demonstrations across Haiti on 15 March, to protest the killing of four police officers in a village in Port-au-Prince, corruption, and armed gangs controlling cities.

[96] In September 2021, Henry fired a prosecutor who intended to question him about the record of phone calls, which he denied receiving, in the hours after the assassination from Joseph Felix Badio, whose involvement in the crime was suspected.

[101] In February 2024, the fifth Haitian judge to lead the murder investigation charged Moïse's wife Martine and his prime minister Claude Joseph as co-conspirators in the assassination in part based on testimony from Badio.

Abortion is illegal in Haiti, so rape victims are legally required to carry any resulting pregnancy to term[109] in a country with one of the highest mortality rates for mothers outside of war zones in Sudan and Yemen.

[140] On 13 March, an American blogger, Addison Pierre Maalouf, ignoring the "do not travel" recommendations of the U.S. State Department, was kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang while seeking to interview Jimmy Chérizier.

[141] According to Maalouf's father, who paid the ransom, pressure brought by Chérizier on gang-leader Lanmò Sanjou (literally "la mort sans jour") helped secure the blogger's release.

[143] Starting in January 2024, after his deportation following release from a US prison, former senator Guy Philippe,[10] with the support of an armed militia gone rogue—the Brigade de sécurité des aires protégées (BSAP)[144][145]—led protests demanding the resignation of Ariel Henry.

[146][1][147][2] On 26 January, a judge from Kenya's High Court halted the deployment of Kenyan peace-keepers to Haiti, on the grounds that the National Security Council lacked authority to send police officers abroad.

On 25 February 2024, Michel Patrick Boisvert assumed interim leadership of the Haitian government while Prime Minister Henry traveled to Kenya to negotiate the deployment of Kenyan police forces to Haiti.

[149] On 29 February, a wave of violence broke out in Haiti[150]—gunfire was directed at the main airport and many businesses in the area and two police stations were seized[151][152]—fueling speculation that an alliance between rival gangs was forming to overthrow the government.

[157] On 5 March, with the Port-au-Prince airport shut down by gang attacks, Henry's chartered plane was also prevented from landing in Santo Domingo, and was diverted to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

[167] On 24 March, Dominique Dupuy, who had replaced the only other woman on the council (Marie Ghislaine Mompremier) four days earlier,[166] resigned after receiving death threats and becoming the target of misogynistic comments.

Garry Conille, who was briefly prime minister during the Martelly administration and worked as former UN Special Envoy Bill Clinton's chief of staff, was unanimously designated by the six councillors present.

[177] On 17 March, a UNICEF aid container carrying critical items for infants and mothers was looted in the port, while 60% of hospitals nationally were unable to operate due to medicine and fuel shortages.

[179] Even before violence escalated shutting down all but one of the capital's hospitals, Haiti had the worst conditions for childbirth in Latin America and the Caribbean, with only "war-torn countries like Sudan and Yemen" having higher mortality rates.

[182] Public transportation union leaders painted a grim picture of kidnappings and brigandage on the roads, as armed gangs continued their nearly 3-year-long control of the national highway system, demanding tolls to allow traffic to pass.

According to the WFP, nearly half the population was going hungry, with over 1.6 million on the edge of starvation (IPC-4) with pockets in or near the capital (Croix-des-Bouquets and Cité Soleil) risking a return to the catastrophic (IPC-5) levels at the end of 2022.

[186] On 27 March, it was announced that the U.S. would provide $10 million worth of surplus helmets, bulletproof vests, weapons, and ammunition to the Haitian national police, though U.S. funding for the Multinational Security Support was stalled.

[190][191] On 6 April, police were able to regain control of the Magalie, a freighter at the Varreux terminal in Port-au-Prince whose crew had been kidnapped and whose cargo had been looted of 10,000 bags of rice by the 5 Seconds and Taliban gangs two days earlier.

The U.S. FAA ordered all air traffic diverted to Cibao International Airport of Santiago de los Caballeros, in the Dominican Republic after at least three planes were targeted while landing at Toussaint Louverture[216] In 2024, Haiti experienced a tenfold increase in sexual violence against children, as reported by the United Nations.