The authorities say several gang members have been killed in the Lower Delmas area of the capital Port-au-Prince.

Local reports say military drones carrying explosives are being used in the operation.

Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé praised the assault. He said it was the work of a special task force created two days ago to tackle insecurity.

Chérizier, aged 47, is the feared leader of Viv Ansam (Live Together), a coalition of gangs that control much of the city.

It is not clear whether Kenyan police officers deployed in Haiti last year to help fight the gangs are involved in the security operation.

Last week, a Kenyan police officer – who was on patrol with the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission – was killed in a confrontation with gang members.

Gang control in Port-au-Prince has led to an almost complete breakdown of law and order, the collapse of health services and emergence of a food security crisis.

More than 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in the Caribbean nation in 2024 and more than a million people have fled their homes.

Haiti’s transitional presidential council, the body created to re-establish democratic order, has made little progress towards organising long-delayed elections.

The officer is the first casualty suffered by the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission (MSS).

The force was sent to Haiti in June last year to help restore order to the country, where gangs have seized control of almost the entire capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as large swathes of rural areas.

More than 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in Haiti in 2024 and more than a million people have fled their homes.

The commander of the multinational force, Gen Godfrey Otunge, said the Kenyan police officer had been injured in Artibonite, a region north of the capital.

Gen Otunge said the officer, who has not been named, had been immediately airlifted to hospital, where he died a short while later.

Jack Ombaka, the spokesman for the MSS, said in a statement sent to Reuters news agency that the officer was a “fallen hero” who “was killed while fighting for the people of Haiti”, while Kenya’s foreign ministry said it was “heartbroken by the loss” of the officer.

Mr Ombaka said the officer had been shot by a gang member during a security operation in the town of Pont-Sondé.

He added that the multinational force would “pursue these gangs to the last man standing”.

The MSS was boosted earlier this month by the arrival of an additional 200 Kenyan police officers, but the force is outgunned and outmanned by the gangs, which continue to arm themselves with powerful weapons illegally smuggled from the US.

The future of the multinational force – which also has officers from Bahamas, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Jamaica among its ranks – was thrown into doubt some weeks ago when the Trump administration ordered a freeze on foreign aid programmes.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later approved a waiver for US funds destined for the MSS and Haiti’s National Police, but it is not yet clear whether the US government supports turning the MSS into a UN peacekeeping operation, which would make its funding more secure.

The Caribbean island has been in the grip of violent gangs for several years who have been treating the population with unrelenting brutality, Unicef said.

Sexual violence against children has increased 1,000% since 2023, turning their bodies “into battlegrounds”, spokesman James Elder said.

Unicef estimates 85% of the capital Port-au-Prince is under the control of gangs. More than one million children are living with the constant threat of violence.

Mr Elder gave an example of a 16-year-old girl who had left home to go shopping, and then was seized by armed men. She was beaten, drugged, and repeatedly raped.

She was held for around one month, he said, until the gang let her go when they realised her family had no money to pay a ransom. Kidnappings for extortion are common in Haiti.

She is now in a UN shelter with dozens of other girls receiving care.

Gang control in Port-au-Prince has led to an almost complete breakdown of law and order, the collapse of health services and emergence of a food security crisis.

More than 5,600 people were killed in gang violence in Haiti last year alone.

Haiti’s transitional presidential council, the body created to organise elections and re-establish democratic order, appears to be in turmoil.

The council replaced the interim prime minister in November but has made little progress towards organising long-delayed elections.

Children are also being recruited by the gangs, sometimes forcibly, Unicef said.

The organisation has come across child gang members who are as young as eight.

The basics that Haitian children need for a normal childhood, even if they are still at home with their families, are virtually non-existent said Unicef. Schools and hospitals are barely functioning and tens of thousands of children are not in school.

Unicef has created mobile safe spaces in Haiti to try to support children, and to prevent sexual violence.

But last year, when it appealed for $221.4m (£177.8m) to fund its work in Haiti, it received just a quarter of that.

It’s feared now that with the US freeze on foreign aid affecting humanitarian projects worldwide, Haiti’s needs will be neglected again.

The situation is particularly dire in the capital, Port-au-Prince, where displacement has risen by 87% between 2023 and 2024, IOM figures show.

Gangs control almost the entire city, leading to the collapse of the remaining health services and triggering food insecurity.

More than 5,600 people were killed in gang violence in Haiti last year alone.

IOM Spokesman Kennedy Okoth Omondi said many of the more than one million displaced people had had to flee multiple times as the gangs expanded their territory in Port-au-Prince.

An estimated 85% of the capital is now estimated to be under gang control.

Most of those displaced fled Port-au-Prince for rural areas, where resources are limited, the IOM warned.

Its Director-General, Amy Pope, said that Haiti needed “sustained humanitarian assistance right now to save and protect lives”.

Half of those displaced are children, according to the IOM’s figures.

The agency described how families were “struggling to survive in makeshift shelters while facing mounting health and protection risks”.

Haiti has been engulfed in a wave of gang violence since the assassination in 2021 of the then-president, Jovenel Moïse.

A UN-backed multinational security force arrived in Haiti in June to try and re-establish control but has so far made few inroads into gang-held territory.

The international police force, which is meant to bolster the Haitian National Police force, is underfunded and lacks the necessary equipment to take on the heavily armed gangs.

Meanwhile, the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) – the body created to organise elections and re-establish democratic order in Haiti – appears to be in turmoil.

The TPC replaced the interim prime minister in November and seems to have made little progress towards organising log-delayed elections.

A first group of 75 soldiers arrived on Friday and another 75 on Saturday, all drafted from the military police, according to Guatemala’s government.

A state of emergency has been in place across the Caribbean nation for months as the government battles violent gangs that have taken control of much of the capital Port-au-Prince.

The forces are in Haiti to boost a United Nations-backed security mission led by Kenya that has so far failed to prevent violence from escalating.

Kenya sent nearly 400 police officers in June and July last year to help combat the gangs.

This was the first tranche of a UN-approved international force that will be made up of 2,500 officers from various countries.

A small number of forces from Jamaica, Belize and El Salvador are also in Haiti as part of the mission and the US is the operation’s largest funder.

In March 2024, armed gangs stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, freeing around 3,700 inmates.

The Ouest Department – a region including Port-au-Prince – was originally put under a state of emergency on 3 March, after escalating violence gripped the capital.

Chronic instability, dictatorships and natural disasters in recent decades have left Haiti the poorest nation in the Americas.

In 2021, President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by unidentified gunmen in Port-au-Prince.

Since then the country has been wracked by economic chaos, little functioning political control and increasingly violent gang warfare.

President Christine Carla Kangaloo issued the declaration on the advice of Prime Minister Keith Rowley, who had been under growing pressure to take action over worsening crime figures.

The twin-island republic has one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a record murder tally of more than 620 this year so far in a population of 1.5 million people.

Organised crime is responsible for the majority of the murders, many of them linked to the international drug trade.

According to the US state department, the country’s close proximity to Venezuela, porous borders and direct transportation routes to Europe and North America make it “a prime location for narcotics trans-shipment”.

In the latest violent incident, five men were shot dead in a shop in the poverty-stricken Laventille area on Sunday. Police believe the killings were in reprisal for the murder of a prominent gang member the previous day.

Under the state of emergency, police will have the authority to arrest people on suspicion of involvement in crimes. They will also have the power to “search and enter both public and private premises as necessary”.

The prime minister’s office issued a statement saying the intention was to “address individuals who pose a threat to public safety, particularly those involved in criminal activities and the illegal use of firearms”.

However, it added that there were no plans to impose a curfew.

It is unclear how the state of emergency will affect Trinidad’s world-renowned Carnival, which is set to culminate in a massive street parade on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday in early March.

The event is a major tourist attraction which brings in tens of thousands of visitors from overseas, but heightened security measures could put a damper on the festivities.

The move comes as Trinidad and Tobago gears up for a general election, which must be held by August 2025.

Rowley’s governing People’s National Movement party, in power since September 2015, faces a strong challenge from the opposition United National Congress, led by former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Many others injured were injured in Tuesday’s attack in the General Hospital in the capital Port-au-Prince.

Pictures posted online appear to show several people injured or dead inside the building.The site had been recaptured by Haiti’s government in July, after being occupied and destroyed by violent gangs that control much of the city.

Journalists were waiting for the arrival of Health Minister Lorthe Blema when the shooting began.

Reports say two journalists and a police officer were shot dead.”It felt like a terrible movie,” Dieugo André, a photojournalist who witnessed the violence, was quoted as saying by The Haitian Times.

“I have the blood of several injured journalists on my clothes.”

The attack is reported to have been carried out by members of the Viv Ansanm gang.

In a video statement, the head of Haiti’s presidential transitional council, Leslie Voltaire, said: “We express our sympathy to all the victims’ families, in particularly to the Haiti National Police and all the journalists’ associations.

“We guarantee them that this act will not remain without consequences.”

The people of Haiti continue to suffer with unbearable levels of gang violence, despite the installation of a new transition government in April and the deployment of an international force led by Kenyan police officers six months ago.

Haiti has been engulfed in a wave of gang violence since the assassination in 2021 of the then-president, Jovenel Moïse.

An estimated 85% of Port-au-Prince is still under gang control.

The UN says that as many as 5,000 people have been killed in violence in Haiti this year along, and the country is now on the verge of collapse.

The National Human Rights Defence Network (RNDDH) said on Sunday that Wharf Jeremie gang leader Monel “Mikano” Felix ordered the massacre in Cite Soleil, a sprawling slum in Port-au-Prince, after his child became sick.

Felix had reportedly sought advice from a Voodoo priest who accused elderly people in the area of using witchcraft to harm the child, who died on Saturday afternoon.

Gang members killed at least 60 people on Friday and 50 on Saturday using machetes and knives, according to RNDDH.

All the victims were aged over 60, the rights group said.Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Monday, United Nations rights chief Volker Turk commented on this weekend’s violence, putting the death toll at 184.

“Just this past weekend, at least 184 people were killed in violence orchestrated by the leader of a powerful gang in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, in the Cite Soleil area,” Turk said.

Densely populated Cite Soleil is among the poorest and most violent areas of Haiti. Tight gang control, including the restriction of mobile phone use, has limited residents’ ability to share information about the latest killings.

The UN in October estimated that Felix’s gang numbered some 300 people and operated around nearby Fort Dimanche and La Saline.

La Saline was in November 2018 the site of the massacre of at least 71 civilians, while hundreds of homes were set on fire.

The government, racked by political infighting, has struggled to contain armed gangs’ growing power in and around the capital.

Haitian authorities had in 2022 requested international security support for local police, but the mission – based on voluntary contributions – that the UN approved in 2023 has only partially deployed and is severely under-resourced.

Haitian leaders have since called for the mission to be converted into a UN peacekeeping force to ensure it is better supplied, but the plan stalled amid opposition from China and Russia in the Security Council.

Some 5,000 people have been killed in Haiti so far this year, the UN’s Turk said. An estimated 41,000 people were forced to flee their homes in the last two weeks alone, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Overall, there are more than 700,000 people displaced in Haiti due to the conflict, the IOM says.

In a statement on Friday, the Multinational Security Support Mission to Haiti (MSS) said that it “categorically refutes” reports that officers have not had their wages paid for three months.

“All MSS personnel have received their salaries, including monthly allowances, and no MSS officer has tendered their resignation as alleged,” the statement reads.

“MSS officers remain highly motivated and fully committed to supporting the Haitian National Police [HNP] in conducting decisive operations aimed at dismantling gang networks and restoring stability.”

The allegations of unpaid wages come as the MSS struggles to make an impact on conditions in Haiti, where armed gangs have unleashed a wave of violence, wreaking havoc on civilian life and destabilising the country.

The UN estimates as much as 85 percent of the capital of Port-au-Prince has fallen under gang control. More than 700,000 people are displaced across Haiti as a result of the violence.

The news agency Reuters reported in an exclusive story on Friday that nearly 20 Kenyan officers have resigned from the MSS over delays in pay and poor working conditions, citing three sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In its statement, MSS said that Reuters did not contact the mission for comment before publication, but a spokesperson for the news agency has said that Reuters stands by the story.

The mission, already heavily scrutinised due to the poor track record of foreign interventions in Haiti, has made little headway since arriving in the Caribbean island nation in June.

Difficulties related to funding have been present from the start. While originally envisioned as a policing mission staffed by 2,500 personnel, Kenya has sent only about 400 officers since June.

Questions have also emerged around the stability of funding from the United States, the primary financial supporter for the mission.

While the administration of US President Joe Biden has promoted the Kenyan-led effort, it is unclear whether that support will continue in 2025, when Biden is replaced by President-elect Donald Trump.

In response to the lack of funding, officials from the US and elsewhere have pushed for the UN to launch a peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

But a previous UN peacekeeping mission to the country ended in 2017 amid outcry over its role in re-introducing cholera to the country and allegations of sexual assault.

Security in Haiti has worsened since the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise in 2021. But even with the presence of the Kenyan force, gang violence has continued to climb, and the country continues to struggle to establish stable governance.

Haiti has not held federal elections in years, a fact the gangs have seized upon to claim legitimacy.

In addition, last month, a transitional council tasked with restoring democracy to Haiti fired interim Prime Minister Garry Conille after only six months in the post. The move spurred further questions about corruption in the transitional government – and the future of Haiti’s leadership.

Hidden in a banana shipment, officials found 9,500kg of the drug at a port in the capital, Santo Domingo.

The cocaine was hidden in 320 bags with an estimated street value of $250 million (£196 million).

At least 10 people linked to the port are under investigation with early investigations showing the bananas had arrived from Guatemala, according to the National Drug Control Directorate.

Communications chief Carlos Denvers said: “Many unknown individuals tried to transfer the drugs to another container that would be shipped on a vessel to Belgium.”

The haul far exceeds the 2,580kg seizure made by Dominican authorities at the same port in 2006.

Monitoring agencies have reported that the Caribbean is resurfacing as a major drug trafficking route from Colombia to Europe.

A report last year found the use of cocaine is increasing in several western European countries including the UK, Belgium, France and Spain.

Europe accounted for 21% of the world’s cocaine users in 2020, according to a United Nations report.

Evidence suggests use of the drug is bringing dire health consequences, with recent data showing drug-poisoning deaths in England and Wales hit the highest level in 30 years, fuelled by a 30% rise in fatalities involving cocaine.