The people of Haiti have endured many hardships. Look at what the nation has gone through in just the last two decades: Major earthquakes in 2010 and 2021 that killed hundreds of thousands. A cholera outbreak in 2010 with over 800,000 reported cases and almost 10,000 deaths. Hurricane Matthew in 2016 devastated the land and left nearly 500 people dead. Through it all, the nation’s residents have resiliently held on.

Today, natural disasters and disease epidemics are not the Caribbean nation’s biggest problems—human conflicts are. Its latest crisis? An outbreak of violence that has destabilized the nation.

It can be easy to blame Haiti’s current problems on the nation’s longstanding poverty, the legacy of colonialism, widespread deforestation and European and U.S. interference. These may all play a factor. But the immediate cause is something else: Violent street gangs.

Who are these gangs? The New York Times reported: “Experts estimate that up to 200 gangs operate in Haiti, about 20 of them in Port-au-Prince. They range from small groups of a few dozen young men who share pistols to crews of roughly 1,500 men with weekly salaries and automatic weapons who belong to hierarchal organizations with bosses. Two main gang federations, G-Pep and the G-9 Family, control many of the poorest neighborhoods in the capital. The criminal groups and their allies sometimes collude, but more often clash.”

The article continued, “The gangs are…hoping to set up a governing council to rule the country, and they want to help pick its members so they can exert control, said Robert Muggah, who researches Haiti for various U.N. agencies.”

At the end of February, coordinated gang attacks saw gunmen taking control of police stations, opening fire on the main international airport that remained closed for nearly three months and storming Haiti’s two biggest prisons. At least 80 percent of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is currently under gang control. The conflict has destabilized the nation, leading to a state of emergency being declared, hundreds of thousands of citizens displaced and the prime minister being forced to resign, meaning leaders have had to form a new government while the violence rages on.

“The most difficult time of our life”

In May, hundreds of people packed into a sweltering church in Haiti’s capital to mourn Judes Montis, a mission director killed by gang members who also fatally shot an American couple that worked with him.

Wails filled the crowded church during the early morning service as tears streamed down the face of Montis’ wife. The service also honored the lives of Davy and Natalie Lloyd, a married couple in their early 20s who were with Montis when gunmen ambushed them as they left a youth group activity held at a local church. Montis, 47, leaves behind a wife, two children, ages 2 and 6, and a brother who was present the night that the killings occurred.

“We’ll never forget you or the path you created for others!” cried out one mourner as the crowd dressed in black and white made its way from the church to the cemetery.

The service was held just days after the three were killed in a gang-controlled area in a northern part of Port-au-Prince where Montis worked as the local director of the Oklahoma-based Missions in Haiti, a religious organization founded by David and Alicia Lloyd, Davy Lloyd’s parents. “We are facing the most difficult time of our life,” Missions in Haiti said in a Facebook post. “Thank you for all your prayers and support.”

Sadly, these deaths are only the smallest thumbnail of Haiti’s tragedy.

“I am appalled by the staggering and worsening level of gang violence,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in January. “Gang killings, kidnappings and sexual violence, notably against women and young girls, among other abuses, continue with widespread impunity.”

In March, the UN human rights office reported that gang violence had killed over 1,500 people so far in 2024, while dozens had been lynched, stoned or burned alive by so-called self-defense brigades.

A June report from the UN migration agency found that nearly 580,000 people had been displaced by gang violence. The International Organization for Migration said the displacement of more than half a million is mainly due to people fleeing the capital of Port-au-Prince for other provinces that lack the resources to support them.

“Nearly all those internally displaced are currently hosted by communities already struggling with overburdened social services and poor infrastructure, raising further concerns about tensions with the potential to spark further violence,” the report said.

Marie Jean, 49, and her two children were displaced from their Port-au-Prince home after a gang killed her husband in February. She is now sheltered with her children at a public school.

“I lived in a comfortable home that my husband worked hard to build,” Mrs. Jean told The Associated Press. “Now I’m living in a situation that’s inhuman.”

Juste Dorvile, 39, is also staying at a public school with her 12-year-old daughter and boyfriend as gunshots are heard constantly in the area. “Every day we’re hoping that we survive,” she said.

“This violence is traumatizing”

As the conflict intensifies, Haiti’s children are being recruited into gangs, with boys used as lookouts to help with kidnappings and robberies and girls used to do housework or as spies. Those who try to escape face execution, according to the UN.

Haiti’s kids have been emotionally scarred—both those recruited and those who are simply trying to continue their lives as all this is happening.

At a school in northern Port-au-Prince, students often throw up or wet themselves when gunfire erupts outside their school. When they do, school director Roseline Ceragui Louis finds there is only one way to try to calm the children and keep them safe: getting them to lie on the classroom floor while she sings softly.

“You can’t work in that environment,” she said. “It’s catastrophic. They’re traumatized.”

At a recent training session in a relatively safe section of Port-au-Prince, parents learned games to put a smile on their children’s faces. The parents are often so distraught and discouraged they do not have energy to care for the kids, said Yasmine Deroche, who trains adults to help children overcome trauma inflicted by persistent gang violence.

As of May, some 900 schools had closed, affecting some 200,000 children.

More than 80 children were killed or wounded from January to March, a 55 percent increase over the last quarter of 2023 and “the most violent period for children in the country on record,” said Save the Children, a U.S. nonprofit.

Ms. Luca said among those hurt were two boys struck in the head while walking to school and an 8-year-old girl playing inside her home when she was hit by a bullet that tore through her intestines, requiring emergency surgery.

“We are witnessing a lot of mental health issues,” Mr. Maes said. “This violence is traumatizing.”

Ms. Louis said her 10-year-old son would daily cry, “You’re going to die!” as she headed to school, and the violence caused the boy to not eat, sleep or play. She remained resolute, knowing she had to be strong for him and her students. “My heart is destroyed, but my students see my smile every day,” she added.

“I know that the crisis we’re living through right now will have consequences that will take I don’t know how many years to sort out,” Ms. Deroche said.

“I want to be part of the change”

On March 11, as heavily armed rivals unleashed fresh waves of attacks, including raids on police stations and the international airport, Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his resignation. He had left Haiti to seek support for a Kenyan security mission and could not re-enter the country. A transition council set to work selecting a new leader for the nation.

Amid all the violence and chaos, some Haitians have held out hope for leaders to solve their problems. As thousands fled, one man, who was among a handful of people joining a demonstration in the capital, said he wanted to stay until a new government is installed: “I want to be part of the change.”

In late May, Haiti’s transition council tapped former Prime Minister Garry Conille, who briefly led the country over a decade ago, to return to the role, seeking to restore stability and regain control.

Dr. Conille’s extensive resume in development, working largely with the United Nations, is considered key to shoring up international support as Haiti prepares to launch a UN-backed security mission led by Kenya, though its deployment has faced hurdles.

The transition council, which holds some presidential powers, and its head, Edgard Leblanc, acting as a de facto president, are now tasked with holding elections before February 7, 2026, as laid out in Haiti’s constitution. President Jovenel Moise, who appointed Mr. Henry, was assassinated in 2021. Haiti has not had a president since.

Dr. Conille was previously the prime minister for just seven months, resigning in February 2012 after losing the support of his cabinet and clashing with then-President Michel Martelly.

In June, Haiti’s administration finished selecting new ministers for the new prime minister’s cabinet. In a stark departure from the previous government, the cabinet trimmed the number of ministers while replacing all who had served in Mr. Henry’s cabinet. Many of the new picks were drawn from outside Haiti’s political class altogether. In the new cabinet, the prime minister will also serve as interior minister, controlling much of Haiti’s security forces as well as intelligence gathering.

Yet the roots of Haiti’s gang violence are much too deep for the new government to quickly rip them out.

“Created a monster”

Back in the 1990s, the military overthrew Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, causing an embargo to be imposed on Haiti. The embargo and international isolation devastated the country’s small middle class, said Michael Deibert, author of the book Notes From the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti. A U.S.-backed UN force pushed out the coup’s leaders in 1994. Afterward, he added, a World Bank-sponsored structural adjustment led to the importation of rice from the U.S., which devastated rural agricultural society.

Boys without work flooded into Port-au-Prince and joined gangs. Politicians started using them as a cheap armed wing. Aristide, a priest-turned-politician, gained notoriety for using gangsters. In December 2001, police official Guy Philippe attacked the National Palace in an attempted coup and Aristide called on the gangsters to rise from the slums, according to Mr. Deibert.

“It wasn’t the police defending their government’s Palais Nacional,” remembered Mr. Deibert, who was there. “It was thousands of armed civilians.”

“Now, you have these different politicians that have been collaborating with these gangs for years, and…it blew up in their face,” he said.

Many of the gangs retreated in the face of MINUSTAH, a UN force established in 2004.

Rene Preval, the only democratically elected president to win and complete two terms in the country notorious for political upheaval, took a hard line on the gangs, giving them the choice to “disarm or be killed,” said Robert Fatton, professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia.

After Preval’s presidency, subsequent leaders were at best easy on the gangs and at worst tied to them, Mr. Fatton said. He added that every key actor in Haitian society had their gangs, noting that the current situation is not unique, but that it has deteriorated at a faster pace.

“For the last three years, the gangs started to gain autonomy. And now they are a power unto themselves,” he said, likening them to a “mini-Mafia state.”

“The autonomy of the gangs has reached a critical point. It is why they are capable now of imposing certain conditions on the government itself,” Mr. Fatton said. “Those who created the gangs created a monster. And now the monster may not be totally in charge, but it has the capacity to block any kind of solution.”

The gangs, along with many Haitian politicians and businesspeople, earn money from an illicit brew of “taxes” gleaned through extortion, kidnappings, and drugs and weapons smuggling. “There are all kinds [of] criminal networks in the area,” Mr. Fatton added.

After Preval, gangs, politicians and businesspeople extracted every dollar they could, said Francois Pierre-Louis, a professor of political science at Queens College at The City University of New York.

“It was open house for gangs, drugs, the country, basically…became a narco-trafficking state,” he said. “Basically, the gangs got empowered, and not only they got empowered, they had state protection, politicians protecting them.”

Why So Much Suffering?

Examining the current crisis makes one thing clear: Haiti’s citizens have suffered a lot. There are millions of citizens who are not affiliated with a gang and just want to live a normal life.

The nation has been so afflicted over the years that people wonder if Haiti is being punished by God. Some have even claimed Haiti made a pact with Satan in its distant past, putting it under a divine curse. While the facts do not bear out that Haiti ever made such a deal, this does point to a bigger question: Can we glean anything from the Bible about Haiti’s struggles?

Jesus Christ, in a seldom-quoted account in Luke, addressed whether people going through horror and tragedy automatically means God is angry with them. Jesus knew this question would be on the minds of His audience in the first century, just as it is for us today.

Chapter 13 opens by describing a tragedy that had taken place back then: “About this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the Temple” (vs. 1, New Living Translation).

Continue reading: “And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose you that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, No: but, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish” (vs. 2-3). Like those in the first century, people today can jump to conclusions that those who go through tragedy are “sinners above all.” Yet Christ explained this is not the case.

He continued, “Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think you that they were sinners above all men that dwelled in Jerusalem? I tell you, No: but, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish” (vs. 4-5). Jesus made clear that whether someone was murdered or died in a freak accident, neither outcome meant they were singled out by God. Everyone is in the same boat of needing to repent and seek God, else we will all, as Jesus said, “likewise perish.”

Today, violence and disasters are mainstays for those in Haiti but also people in other nations of the world. The victims do not deserve the blame. These problems come from a larger cause: Human beings following their own ways and forms of government instead of God’s.

Real Truth Editor-in-Chief David C. Pack addressed this in his booklet Why Man Cannot Solve His Problems: “Cut off from God by sin (Isa. 59:1-2; Jer. 5:25), mankind has believed the lies of the god of this world for 6,000 years. The core of God’s plan encompasses 7,000 years. Few have understood this. Many have correctly understood at least some of the verses describing Christ’s 1,000-year Reign. But they know nothing of the fact that God has allotted 6,000 years, or six millennial days of a ‘seven-day week,’ to man’s rule, prior to the seventh 1,000-year ‘day.’ We are near the end of the ‘sixth day.’”

Mr. Pack continued: “Man (under the invisible sway of Satan) has been given six days, or 6,000 years, to try his own ways, governments, religions, philosophies, value systems and forms of education. Under the influence of Satan, he has practiced sin and disobedience to God’s commands for nearly 6,000 years. He has then tried to treat all of the ill effects instead of treating the cause—breaking God’s commandments. God is letting man learn bitter lessons.”

Yet there is hope. Mr. Pack added: “Eventually, the entire world will learn the truth (Isa. 11:9), with all nations having access to the plan of salvation. But that time has not yet come for humanity at large.”

To learn much more about God’s Plan for all peoples and nations, as well as the bright, wonderful future for the people of Haiti, read Why Man Cannot Solve His Problems and Tomorrow’s Wonderful World – An Inside View!

This article contains information from The Associated Press and Reuters.