Overview

• The Haitian government secretly contracted Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, to target heavily armed gangs controlling large swaths of Port-au-Prince.
• Human rights monitors attribute roughly 200–300 deaths to the drone strikes since March, with no reported high-value captures.
• Prince has already delivered weapons caches and intends to scale up operations by deploying as many as 150 private contractors this summer.
• The US State Department has officially denied any involvement in approving or supporting the mercenary agreement.
• Haiti has endured anarchy since President Jovenel Moise’s 2021 assassination, with more than 10,000 violent deaths and limited progress from a UN-backed police mission.