The government of Haiti said police had launched a large-scale operation in a shantytown controlled by powerful gang leader Jimmy Chérizier, who is widely known as Barbecue.
The authorities say several gang members were 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.
On March 1, Haitian National Police (PNH) conducted a thorough operation in the Delmas 6 neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, believed to be the stronghold of notorious gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier.
According to the Prime Minister who issued an announcement on X, the operation led to the deaths of several gang members.
“The Task Force created by the government and the [Presidential Transitional Council] (CPT), in less than 48 hours, is already yielding results,” Fils-Aimé’s statement said “A large-scale operation is underway in Bas-Delmas, and several gang members have already been neutralized. Security forces are mobilized, and a state of readiness has been declared.”
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 Kenyan team is part of the group of a UN-approved international force that will be made up of 2,500 officers from various countries.
There are however concerns that even if the team manages to dislodge the bandits from this stronghold, the absence of an immediate and lasting occupation by the police or the army will allow them to return quickly.
But even 1,000 security personnel or the mission’s targeted goal of 2,500 is insufficient, security experts say.
There are around nearly 900 police and troops from Kenya, El Salvador, Jamaica, Guatemala and Belize.
Chronic instability, dictatorships and natural disasters in recent decades have left Haiti the poorest nation in the Americas.
Last year, Haiti saw a record number of neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas fall to armed gangs, despite the presence of foreign forces and a new U.S.-backed transition government.
As the gangs took over neighborhoods and carried out some of the worst massacres in recent memory, they also deepened the country’s humanitarian crisis as tens of thousands more Haitians were forced to flee their homes.
The United Nations said more than 5,600 people were killed by gang violence last year, an increase over the previous two years, and over 1 million Haitians are now displaced.
The international security mission, while approved by the U.N. Security Council, is not a United Nations operation and currently relies on voluntary contributions.
Two weeks ago, the US delivered at least 600 assorted guns to the mission boosting ongoing operations against criminal gangs in the Caribbean nation.
The donation made on February 10 also included nine pickups, two trucks, two excavators, two armored loaders and tens of bullets.
Officials said this will boost the ongoing operation on the gangs on the ground in general.
The Kenya-led mission remains dependent on voluntary contributions, which have so far been limited.
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