Violence Is Not Falling, It Is Moving: What the State Refuses to See

From January 2023 to December 2025, the sequence of violence Haiti went through defies comprehension. To the observer on the ground, it is unpredictable chaos. To the data analyst, it is a system under constraint. If one aggregates the thousands of incidents reported week by week in the ACLED database (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project), what emerges is not a curve climbing toward infinity, but a line oscillating around a macabre equilibrium point.

The table below summarizes this national “stability” according to our ACLED data extract:

Source: Analysis of ACLED data, Jan 2023 to Dec 2025.

This constant volume teaches us something fundamental: violence does not appear out of nowhere every week. It is limited by the weapons, men, and ammunition available. The question, then, is not whether violence is rising, but where it goes when it seems to vanish from Port-au-Prince. The answer lies in the North.

The spatial model: Proof that no one is an island

We set out to test scientifically whether insecurity in one town depended on insecurity in the town next door. To do so, we used a spatial autoregressive model (SAR).

Yᵢₜ = ρ ∑ⱼ wᵢⱼ Yⱼₜ + Xᵢₜβ + μᵢ + εᵢₜ

Behind this complex equation lies a simple truth, summed up by the symbol ρ (rho). Our model estimates this coefficient at 0.27.

Imagine violence as a flood. The figure of 0.27 means that for any commune in Haiti, nearly a third of its insecurity does not stem from its own internal problems but simply spills over from its neighbors. Our results suggest that administrative boundaries do not stop armed groups.

The evidence: The fall of Cabaret

The final report of the Panel of Experts on Haiti (S/2023/674), published by the UN Security Council on 15 September 2023, documents the territorial dynamics in the area: it describes how, after gang leaders “Jeff” and “Taliban” consolidated their hold on the Canaan area, violence spread to the neighboring commune of Cabaret. Our reading is that the Source Matelas massacre of 29 November 2022, mentioned in the report, illustrates this logic of contagion through geographic contiguity.

The asymmetry: Violence flows like a river

If contagion exists, it does not go off in every direction. It follows a specific current. We measured the strength of the link between the center (the Ouest) and the provinces (the Artibonite) using cross-correlation analysis.

These data suggest a dominant direction. When Port-au-Prince flares up, the Artibonite is likely to see an escalation shortly afterward. The reverse seems less true: a crisis in Gonaïves does not necessarily cause ripples in the capital. Violence seems to behave like a fluid: it starts from the highest point (the saturated capital) and flows toward the lowest point (the less defended provinces).

The evidence: The G-Pèp / Gran Grif axis

Reports by the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) document the logistical links between the G-Pèp coalition in Port-au-Prince and the “Gran Grif” gang of Savien (Artibonite). These sources describe how, during truces in the capital, “soldiers” are moved north to strengthen territorial control, turning the Artibonite into a zone of strategic expansion. It should be noted, however, that this coordination appears more opportunistic than hierarchical, with each group retaining its operational autonomy.

The time factor: A warning 14 days ahead

The wave that sets out from the Ouest does not hit the North instantly. Analyzing the response lags in our time series, we observe a recurring delay: the peak of violence in the Artibonite tends to come one to two weeks after a shock in Port-au-Prince.

This is the time taken up by real-world “friction.” Gangs do not teleport. They need two weeks to reorganize their troops, move weapons, negotiate passage, and set up new tolls. For the state, this is not bad news; it is potentially an opportunity. It means that after every major operation in the capital, there may be a 14-day window in which to act.

The evidence: The lag of March 2024

After the coordinated attacks of 29 February 2024 in Port-au-Prince, attention focused on the capital. However, OCHA’s Emergency Situation Report No. 11 (25 March 2024) reports a sharp acceleration in population displacement in the Artibonite from mid-March onward, roughly two weeks after the crisis began in Port-au-Prince. This observed lag matches the window identified by our time model.

Saturation: When the levee breaks

Can a territory absorb violence indefinitely without cracking? No. By analyzing the statistical distribution of events by commune (percentiles), we identified breaking points.

The Lower Artibonite appears to act as a dam protecting the rest of the North. Our analysis suggests a maximum capacity of about 14 incidents a week. Today, with an average of 16.5, the dam seems to be overflowing. The local police appear overwhelmed, and social structures are weakening.

The evidence: The abandonment of Liancourt

The report of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) to the Security Council of 14 April 2023 (S/2023/274) confirms the institutional collapse that followed saturation. Paragraph 18 notes that, after repeated attacks by the Gran Grif gang, the Liancourt police station was abandoned by the Haitian National Police (PNH) in January 2023, leaving the town defenseless and marking the breach of the security levee.

The gangs’ signature: Crimes that travel, crimes that stay put

Not all crimes are alike. Applying our spatial model by type of event, we distinguish two kinds of threat.

Clashes (ρ > 0.35): This is “mobile” violence. It is the war of conquest. When a gang gains ground, the front physically advances. This is the type of violence that moves up National Route 1.

Kidnappings (ρ < 0.10): This is “immobile” violence. Kidnapping needs safe houses and local accomplices. An abduction industry cannot be moved overnight.

If regional contagion is to be stopped, priority must go to fighting the clashes and controlling the roads. Kidnapping is terrible, but it remains a localized problem.

Weak signals: Dispersion as a warning indicator

Beyond the death toll, the most worrying alarm signal is geographic dispersion: violence is reaching a growing number of different localities.

When a gang firmly controls an area, violence remains concentrated. But when everything becomes unstable, violence scatters. That is what is happening now in the Lower Artibonite: violence is spilling over from the major crossroads (Pont-Sondé) into rural areas (Verrettes, La Chapelle).

Our observations suggest that the Lower Artibonite is currently seeing an increase in the number of communal sections affected each month. Violence is no longer confined to strategic crossroads (Pont-Sondé); it appears to be seeping into the adjacent rural areas (Verrettes, La Chapelle).

This dispersion is the harbinger of a total loss of control: the enemy is no longer localized; it is diffuse. For Gonaïves, the warning signal will not be a massive frontal attack, but this multiplication of small peripheral incidents encircling the city.

The evidence: Gradual encirclement

Displacement tracking reports (DTM) from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) show that people are not only fleeing areas of direct combat, but are also leaving outlying rural areas preemptively when armed “scouts” are reported there. This preemptive flight is the tangible sign of a dispersion that satellites cannot see but residents can feel.

The topology of resistance: Why the South is holding (for now)

Why is the Artibonite (North) going up in flames while the Greater South is better resisting mass contagion? The answer is not only political; it is topological.

An analysis of the road networks reveals a fundamental difference. Access to the North (RN1) is an “open corridor” running through continuously settled areas (Canaan, Cabaret, Arcahaie). Contagion spreads there by capillary action. Access to the South (RN2), by contrast, passes through a geographic bottleneck (Mariani/Gressier) wedged between sea and mountains.

This bottleneck acts as a physical lock. However, the data show that pressure on this lock is mounting (a rise in incidents in Mariani). If this breaking point gives way, the spread toward the South will be much faster and more brutal than toward the North, because there are no intermediate “buffer zones.” The South is not holding because it is peaceful, but because its geography is more defensible. One important nuance: coastal shipping (Arcahaie → La Gonâve → Port-au-Prince) offers an alternative route when the overland RN1 is blocked, sometimes making it possible to get around the land locks.

The evidence: The battle of Gressier

The repeated attempts to seize the Gressier police station in 2024, documented by the press and by security reports, illustrate this pressure on the bottleneck. Unlike in the North, where gangs go around obstacles through the plains, in the South they have to break the lock head-on. The holding of this nodal point is a major strategic lock for the security of four departments.

The logistics loop: The North feeds the war in the South

Violence should not be seen as merely a movement of armed men. It is above all a movement of resources. The Artibonite is not just a battlefield; it is the capital’s granary and trading post.

Economic data (food basket prices, transport flows) suggest a correlation between insecurity on RN1 and inflation in Port-au-Prince. The most robust hypothesis is that of a logistics loop: the gangs of the Ouest export violence to the North to control the flow of goods (rice, cement). The rents extorted on RN1 (transit fees, hijackings) return to the capital as cash to buy ammunition and pay the “soldiers.” Cutting off violence in the North is not a humanitarian act; it is a strategic one, a way to starve the groups of the Ouest financially.

The evidence: The roadblock economy

The February 2024 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) documents the bureaucratization of road checkpoints as a structured source of rent for the gangs. The intensification of “tolls” observed in the Lower Artibonite, consistent with our data on economic flows, suggests a diversification of the criminal portfolio.

The principle of simultaneity

Three years of conflict analysis lead to an inescapable operational conclusion. In a system of communicating vessels (our model estimates a connection of ρ = 0.27), any isolated local action is doomed to fail in the medium term.

Striking the Ouest strengthens the North. Securing RN1 without dealing with the source in Canaan merely moves the blockage point. The only mathematically viable response is simultaneity. The point is not to have more forces, but to use them at the same time on the nodal points (senders and receivers). It should be made clear that this interconnection does not necessarily rest on centralized hierarchical coordination, but rather on opportunistic adaptation: the armed groups, though autonomous, exploit the same structural vulnerabilities and react to the same pressures in predictable ways.

As long as the security response remains sequential (first here, then there), it will always leave the armed groups the time (the observed window of about 14 days) and the space to redeploy. The war on insecurity in Haiti is not a battle over territory; it is a battle of tempo.