The United States is considering deploying an elite Marine security team to Haiti because of a deteriorating security situation there, according to a defense official.
The Marines would be deployed at the request of the State Department, according to the defense official. Marine Corps Times asked the State Department for further details Thursday and didn’t receive a response.
“Deploying a FAST platoon is one option at the DoD’s disposal should the DoS request assistance with security at the U.S. Embassy in Port Au Prince,” Maj. Mason Englehart, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces South, wrote in an email to Marine Corps Times on Friday.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry is struggling to stay in power as he tries to return home, where gang attacks have shuttered his country’s main international airport and freed more than 4,000 inmates in recent days.
Henry remained in Puerto Rico as of midday Wednesday.
He landed in the U.S. territory on Tuesday after he was barred from landing in the neighboring Dominican Republic, where officials closed the airspace to flights to and from Haiti.
In 2023, more than 8,400 people in Haiti were reported killed, injured or kidnapped, more than double the number reported in 2022. The U.N. estimates that nearly half of Haiti’s 11 million people need humanitarian assistance, but the 2024 humanitarian appeal for $674 million has received just $17 million — about 2.5% of what’s needed.
Note: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Jamaica on Monday to attend a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) meeting on Haiti where a collapse in security and a humanitarian crisis in the Caribbean nation has unfolded, the State Department said.
Blinken will discuss a proposal developed by CARICOM and Haitian officials to expedite a political transition in Haiti through the creation of a broad-based, independent presidential college as well as the deployment of a multinational security mission to restore order.
Haiti entered a state of emergency last Sunday after fighting escalated as gang violence has threatened to bring down the government and has led thousands to flee their homes.
Blinken will also meet with Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness to discuss bilateral and regional issues, the department said.
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