War WATCH: Episode 4 – Haiti: Crossing the Threshold
In the fourth episode of the War Watch podcast, a six-episode series from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, a joint centre of the University of Geneva and the Geneva Graduate Institute, host Juliette Graf meets Diego Da Rin, Haiti specialist with the International Crisis Group, and Stuart Casey-Maslen, Special Adviser to the Geneva Academy’s IHL in Focus project.
Haiti’s crisis has been years in the making. But in February 2024, something shifted. Two rival gang coalitions merged into a single alliance – Viv Ansanm – and launched coordinated attacks that brought Port-au-Prince to a standstill and toppled the government. The Geneva Academy formally classified Haiti as a non-international armed conflict: the violence was too organised, too sustained, and too deadly to be treated as anything else. Diego Da Rin explains how Haiti’s gangs got here and what their territorial control looks like on the ground. Stuart Casey-Maslen unpacks what the classification actually changes: for accountability, for the Gang Suppression Force now deploying, and for the civilians caught in the middle. The episode also walks through what the War Watch project documented between 2024 and 2025: hospitals attacked, schools burned, mass killings, and sexual violence used deliberately and systematically.
Haiti is one of the conflicts we track on the War Watch portal, where you can find the full legal analysis and documented violations.
Find out more at:
War Watch portal – Haiti: https://warwatch.ch/situations/non-international-armed-conflict-in-haiti
Geneva Academy of IHL and Human Rights: https://geneva-academy.ch
ICG report – Undoing Haiti’s Deadly Gang Alliance (December 2025): https://www.crisisgroup.org/rpt/latin-america-caribbean/haiti/110-undoing-haitis-deadly-gang-alliance
OHCHR – Human rights situation in Haiti: https://ohchr.org/en/countries/haiti
UNICEF – Children in Haiti: https://unicef.org/lac
UN Security Council Resolution 2793 (2025): https://docs.un.org/en/S/RES/2793(2025)
Human Rights Watch – Drone strikes in Haiti (March 2026): https://hrw.org/news/2026/03/10/haiti-drone-strikes-put-residents-at-risk