Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s hired guns to target Haiti’s gangs amid growing chaos

US President Donald Trump’s backer and private military contractor Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, will lead a mission in Haiti to combat gang violence in the country. The mission will include combatants from the US, Europe and El Salvador who will be deployed to the violence-torn country soon.

Prince’s new security firm, Vectus Global, which is already present in Haiti, will intensify its operations in the Caribbean nation to help authorities battle heavily armed criminal groups and win territories back from them, according to a report by Reuters.

Since February 2024, Haiti’s capital has been largely isolated from the rest of the country after armed groups launched a coordinated offensive against the government, ousting the prime minister and seizing control of much of Port-au-Prince.

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According to the United Nations, over 1,500 people were killed between April and July, most of them in the capital. The majority of these deaths occurred during security force operations, with about a third resulting from drone strikes, which the government has recently begun using to target armed groups.

Who is Erik Prince?

Prince, a former US Navy Seal, founded the Blackwater military security firm in 1997. He sold the company in 2010 after Blackwater employees were convicted of unlawfully killing 14 unarmed civilians while escorting a US embassy convoy in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. The men were pardoned by Trump during his first term in the White House.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, Prince has advised Ecuador on how to fight criminal gangs and struck a deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo to help secure and tax its mineral wealth.

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What will his company do in Haiti?

A person familiar with the company’s operations in Haiti told Reuters that Vectus would intensify its fight against the criminal gangs that control large swathes of Haiti in the coming weeks in coordination with the Haitian police, deploying several hundred fighters from the United States, Europe and El Salvador who are trained as snipers and specialists in intelligence and communications, as well as helicopters and boats. Vectus’s force includes some French and Creole speakers, the person said.

With inputs from Reuters