Key Developments and Humanitarian Impact of the Insecurity in the Artibonite, Centre, and Ouest Departments, April 2025 to April 2026

ACAPS reviews the period April 2025 to April 2026, during which the Viv Ansanm gang coalition, estimated at 12,000-20,000 members, consolidated near-total control of Port-au-Prince (about 90 percent of the metropolitan area) and accelerated its expansion into Centre and Artibonite departments. Counter-forces multiplied over the same period: increasingly organized self-defense groups descended from the Bwa Kale movement, a Prime Minister's Office task force using explosive-laden drones operated with a private military firm, and the Gang Suppression Force (GSF), a UN-authorized, primarily military force of up to 5,500 personnel replacing the Multinational Security Support mission, with an advance contingent of roughly 400 Chadian troops deployed by April 2026. Displacement rose 40 percent in a year, from 1.04 million to nearly 1.5 million IDPs, with Centre recording a 140 percent increase and Artibonite 77 percent, indicating a shift of new displacement toward rural departments. The report is compiled from ACLED and IOM data covering 2023-2026 and over 30 humanitarian, think-tank, and media sources.

The impact analysis documents escalating multi-sector needs: 1.4 million people needing protection assistance in the three departments (63 percent of the national caseload), catastrophic levels of gender-based violence with gangs identified as perpetrators in 75 percent of reported cases, and Human Rights Watch documentation of drone strikes in 141 operations killing at least 43 civilian adults and 17 children. Around one million children require assistance to access education after at least 1,600 school closures affecting some 243,000 students. In food security, 3.1 million people in the three departments require assistance, with 1.9 million nationally projected in IPC Phase 4 during the February-June 2026 lean season as gang blockades cut supply corridors and seize production zones in Artibonite's rice basket. ACAPS anticipates intensified confrontations in 2026 as the GSF becomes fully operational, with attendant risks of civilian casualties and further militia-isation of self-defense groups.