Port-au-Prince, Haiti : working and living in chaos?

The Crash team is pleased to invite you to a conference on Thursday February 6 at 6:30pm, with researchers Romain Le Cour Grandmaison and Arnaud Dandoy.    

The conference will be held at MSF headquarters, 34 avenue Jean Jaurès, 75019 Paris. The conference will be broadcast live in English on this page and in French here. 

For anyone outside MSF, registration is required to attend the conference in person. You will find the registration form below. 

As the years go by, the words used to describe the situation in Haiti remain inexorably the same: the situation is “dramatic”, “deteriorating”, over and over again. The gangs' grip on Port-au-Prince is now almost total. In these areas, mass kidnappings, racketeering, sexual violence, attacks and settling of scores with the police and citizens' self-defence brigades, which can lead to atrocities on both sides, are a daily occurrence. Insecurity has become the norm, affecting every aspect of social life.  

MSF is present in Port-au-Prince with projects in the Tabarre district and the Cité Soleil shantytown, and has somehow managed to maintain its activity over the past few years despite the widespread turbulence and violence - not least thanks to patient networking and negotiation with the various players, including the gangs. While this work with the gangs, combined with treating their wounded, has enabled MSF to benefit from a certain benevolence on their part, the greatest dangers for us today come from another quarter. In November 2024, the serious incidents (execution of patients and threats to staff) that affected MSF and led to the suspension of activities were the work of police brigades and vigilante groups.  

At a time when MSF activities are cautiously resuming, this conference will attempt to shed some light on this context. 

Romain Le Cour Grandmaison is director of the Haiti program at the non-governmental organization Global Initiative (GI-TOC). He also holds a doctorate in political science from the Université Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. 

Arnaud Dandoy is co-director of the Center for Research and Exchange on Security and Justice (CRESEJ), and currently in charge of research and knowledge management at Avocats sans frontières. He holds a doctorate in criminology from the University of Kent, UK.