Trudeau: Canada to deploy Navy vessels to Haiti

Canada will send navy vessels to Haiti for intelligence-gathering as part of efforts to quell worsening gang violence in the Caribbean nation, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada said "Right now, Haiti is confronted with unrelenting gang violence, political turmoil, and corruption.

Armed groups are committing murder, rape, and other gender-based violence, kidnapping innocent people, and recruiting children, to terrorize and subjugate people. It hits close to home not only in the region, but also in Canada with our strong Haitian diaspora community." Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, also at the meeting, has pleaded for international military intervention to stop the turmoil.

The Canadian leader also announced his government would give an additional $12.3 million in humanitarian assistance and $10 million to support the International Office on Migration, to protect Haitian women and children along Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic. Canada, the U.S. and other countries already have provided military equipment and other resources, along with training, to Haiti’s National Police, which only has 9,700 active-duty officers for a country of more than 11 million people.