Ottawa-Canada is deploying two warships off the coast of Haiti over the coming weeks to conduct surveillance of the crisis-hit country and support local police, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday. Speaking to a meeting of Caribbean leaders in the Bahamian capital Nassau, he said the ships will “conduct surveillance, gather intelligence and maintain a maritime presence off the Haitian coast in the coming weeks.”
At a news conference later, he said the frigates would “assist the Haitian National Police in their efforts to control gang activity.”
He also said that their mere presence in Port-au-Prince Bay would likely dissuade gangs from using the waterway for criminal activities. Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, has been mired for years in a vicious cycle of humanitarian, economic and political crises exacerbated by brutal gang violence. Last Friday, the United Nation’s top human rights official Volker Turk called for an international force to be deployed to Haiti to help end this “living nightmare.” Trudeau said after a meeting with Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry that Canada “is very concerned about the ongoing unrest and instability in Haiti.”
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