Report on children killed and maimed by the Haitian National Police (PNH) and the government's Security Task Force.

Prepared by: AYITI INTEL Research Platform | KreyòlGenius AI Intelligence Service
Date: July 14, 2026
Classification: Open-Source Intelligence Assessment
Primary Sources: BINUH Quarterly Human Rights Reports, OHCHR, UNICEF, HRW, Amnesty International, Save the Children, UN Secretary-General Annual Reports on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC)

Executive Summary

Between 2024 and mid-2026, children in Haiti have been killed and maimed by all parties to the violence — armed gangs, self-defence vigilante groups, and Haitian state security forces. This report focuses specifically on the documented record of child casualties attributable to state security actors: the Haitian National Police (PNH) and the government's Special Security Task Force (hereafter "the Task Force"), which has operated explosive drone operations against gangs since March 2025 with the assistance of the private military company Vectus Global (led by Erik Prince).

UN-verified data confirms that children have been among the victims of police summary executions, stray bullets during ground operations, and Task Force drone strikes. In 2024, at least two children were documented as victims of police extrajudicial executions. In the first quarter of 2025, at least eight children were struck by stray bullets during security force operations, and two boys (aged 16 and 17) were summarily executed by police. The most alarming escalation arrived with drone operations: from March 2025 to January 2026, OHCHR verified 17 children killed by drone strikes, including nine children aged 3–12 killed in a single September 20, 2025, strike in Simon Pelé. By Q1 2026, drone strikes had killed an additional five children and seriously injured at least two girls (aged 7 and 9).

Critically, by 2025 security force operations accounted for more than half of all killings and injuries in Haiti — a trend OHCHR High Commissioner Volker Türk called "a steep increase compared to 2024", and which BINUH confirmed reached 69% of all casualties in Q1 2026. This structural shift — from gangs as the primary perpetrator to state security actors — represents the most significant and underreported development in Haiti's child casualty landscape.

I. Institutional Background: The PNH and the Task Force

The Haitian National Police (PNH)

The PNH is Haiti's primary law enforcement institution, comprising specialized units including the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI), the Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of Order (UDMO), the Temporary Anti-Gang Unit (UTAG), and the Motorized Intervention Brigade (BIM). These units have conducted sustained anti-gang operations in Port-au-Prince and surrounding departments. The PNH has also been repeatedly documented engaging in extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary executions of individuals suspected of gang affiliation — a practice OHCHR documented in 281 cases in 2024 alone.

BINUH further documented that police officers have, on some occasions, reportedly facilitated lynchings of alleged gang members and their suspected associates. As of September 2025, the PNH's Internal Affairs Inspectorate had opened 90 investigations into potentially excessive use of force — none of which had been completed.

The Special Security Task Force (SSTF)

On March 1, 2025, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé announced the creation of a specialized "Task Force" authorized to conduct drone operations against gang strongholds. The Task Force is coordinated by the Prime Minister's Office, the Prime Minister's Security Unit (USPM), and the General Security Unit of the National Palace (USGPN). According to BINUH and journalistic sources, the Task Force operates with support from Vectus Global, a private military company (PMC) led by Erik Prince, which deployed Salvadoran operators to conduct drone missions. The US State Department issued a license to Vectus Global to export defense services to Haiti.

The Task Force has operated with near-total opacity. No official public statement on its mandate, composition, rules of engagement, or chain of command had been issued by the Haitian government at time of writing. Neither the Prime Minister, the PNH, nor Vectus Global responded to Human Rights Watch's requests for comment.

II. Child Casualties: The Documentary Record

A. 2024 — Pre-Task Force Baseline: PNH Operations

Prior to the Task Force's establishment, children were already being killed and maimed during PNH anti-gang operations, primarily as collateral damage from stray bullets and through direct summary executions.

Full-year 2024 data (OHCHR/BINUH):

Save the Children's analysis of UN data confirmed 2024 as the deadliest year on record for children in Haiti since the escalation of violence began in 2021. More than one in three children killed in Q4 2024 were themselves in armed groups, reflecting the overlap between victimhood and forced gang recruitment.[12]

In Q4 2024, at least 75 children were killed, some as young as 12, and 27 of them were in armed groups at the time. The BINUH Q4 2024 report noted that law enforcement operations were responsible for approximately 38% of civilian casualties during that quarter, with victims frequently struck by stray bullets inside their homes.[13][12]

B. Q1 2025 — Task Force Launch and Escalating Police Violence

Between January and March 2025, at least 35 children were killed and 10 were injured across all forms of violence (gang attacks, police operations, and Bwa Kalé mob justice). Children represented 2% of total casualties (1,617 killed, 580 injured).[4][1]

Children attributed to security force operations in Q1 2025:

• At least 8 children were struck by stray bullets during PNH anti-gang operations, primarily in Cité Soleil during UDMO and UTAG deployments[4]
• 2 boys (aged 16 and 17) were summarily executed by specialized police units — one in Petite Rivière de l'Artibonite, one in Delmas — while neither was armed nor engaged in violence[1]
• 65 total summary/arbitrary executions were recorded against law enforcement officials in Q1 2025: 50 by PNH members and 15 by the Miragoâne Government Commissioner[1]

Police operations in Q1 2025 accounted for 56% of all documented deaths and injuries — a structural shift from 2024, when gangs were the dominant perpetrator.[4]

The Task Force began drone operations in March 2025. During March alone, more than 15 drone operations were reported, killing at least 115 suspected gang members. Two members of the civilian population were also injured during these first operations. No child drone casualties were documented in the initial March launch data, though the full toll would emerge in subsequent months.[1]

C. Q2 2025 — Drone Operations Expand, Child Casualties Rise

Between April and June 2025, security forces were responsible for 64% of all casualties (1,520 killed and 609 injured). The Task Force's drone operations intensified dramatically.[11]

Children killed or injured during security force operations, Q2 2025:

• 3 children killed and 5 children injured during security operations (ground and drone combined)[11]
• During drone operations specifically: 1 child killed out of 236 drone-strike deaths during Q2[11]
• During ground operations: 2 children killed and 5 children injured out of 578 killed and 226 injured[11]

By Q2, explosive drones accounted for 36% of all casualties during security force operations, killing 236 and injuring 223. Drone operations evolved from opportunistic strikes to increasingly integrated operations coordinated with specialized police ground units.[11]

D. Q3 2025 — Security Forces Dominate Casualty Data

Between July and September 2025, security forces were responsible for 61% of all casualties — 1,247 killed and 710 injured. This was an 11% decrease from Q2 2025 but remained far above pre-2025 levels.[14][15]

Children as a proportion of Q3 2025 casualties:

• Children represented 3% of all Q3 2025 casualties, compared to 2% in Q1 and Q2[14]
• Based on the 3% figure applied to 1,247 killed and 710 injured, approximately 37 children were killed or injured during this quarter (though BINUH does not explicitly disaggregate this figure by perpetrator category)

OHCHR High Commissioner Volker Türk, speaking to the Human Rights Council on October 2, 2025, reported that drone strikes had killed at least 559 people, including 11 children, from March through mid-September 2025. He warned that "most of these drone strikes are likely unlawful under international human rights law" — a direct indictment of both the Task Force and its PMC partner, Vectus Global.[7]

On September 20, 2025, a drone strike near the "Nan Pak" sports complex in Simon Pelé, where children had gathered for a birthday gift distribution organized by the Simon Pelé criminal group, killed 9 children aged 3 to 12. According to Doctors Without Borders, at least 17 people were treated at hospitals, including 3 children who subsequently died. Injuries included traumatic amputations, blast fragmentation wounds, and blunt force trauma. Witnesses described a scene of "chaos and panic, with dozens of injured people waiting for help."[2]

E. March 2025 – January 2026 (OHCHR Consolidated Period)

OHCHR's consolidated reporting covering March 1, 2025, through January 15, 2026, provides the most authoritative disaggregated child casualty data attributable to security actors for this period:

Between March 2025 and January 2026, OHCHR also documented 247 instances of actual or attempted summary executions by security forces, resulting in the deaths of 196 people. The Miragoâne Prosecutor alone accounted for at least 43 extrajudicial executions by September 2025.[18][10]

The HRW March 2026 report specifically characterized "at least some of the drone strikes" as "attempts to carry out extrajudicial killings," stating that the deliberate lethal use of force in these circumstances does not meet the threshold of international human rights law.[2]

F. Q4 2025 — Annual Toll Confirmed

In Q4 2025 (October–December), at least 1,523 people were killed and 806 injured. For all of 2025, BINUH confirmed more than 5,915 killed and 2,708 injured. Security forces (including the Task Force) accounted for more than 62% of killings and injuries in Q4.

Among all victims of drone strikes in Q4 2025, 32 were members of the civilian population, including two young girls.

The RNDDH and OHCHR jointly documented from March 2025 through January 2026 that at least 5,519 people were killed and 2,608 injured — with the breakdown showing:[20]

• Gangs: 1,424 killed
• Security force operations: 3,497 killed
• Self-defence groups: 598 killed[18]

This breakdown is critical: security operations caused roughly 2.5 times more deaths than gang attacks during this reporting period.

G. Q1 2026 — Continued Escalation

Between January and March 2026, at least 1,642 were killed and 745 injured. Security forces remained responsible for 69% of all casualties. Regarding children specifically in Q1 2026:[5]

• Of all victims of drone strikes during Q1 2026, 69 were members of the civilian population, including 5 children[5]
• Two girls aged 7 and 9 were among the seriously injured after a drone fell in the courtyard of their home in Martissant in March 2026[5]
• BINUH separately documented 33 people killed and 7 injured in alleged summary executions involving PNH members during the quarter[5]

Amnesty International's May 2026 report cited the BINUH Q1 2026 data and confirmed that in drone operations during this quarter, 41 people were killed (23 men, 15 women, and 3 children) and 28 injured (9 men, 17 women, and 2 girls).[17]

III. Trend Analysis: Year-Over-Year and Quarter-Over-Quarter

Child Casualty Trajectory (All Perpetrators)

Note: The SG's 2024 CAAC annual report recorded 2,269 grave violations affecting 1,373 children in Haiti in 2024; the 2025 CAAC annual report (published July 2026) documented 2,088 violations affecting 1,661 children — indicating a shift toward fewer distinct violations but more children victimized per incident, consistent with mass casualty drone attacks.

Shift in Perpetrator Attribution: The Critical 2025 Turn

The most significant trend is the inversion of the perpetrator hierarchy. In 2024, gangs were responsible for the majority of casualties. By Q1 2025, security forces (PNH + Task Force) accounted for 56% of casualties. This rose to 64% in Q2 2025, 61% in Q3 2025, 62%+ in Q4 2025, and 69% in Q1 2026.

Sources: BINUH Quarterly Reports Q4 2024–Q1 2026

This is the "substantial increase" that OHCHR Türk flagged in October 2025 — a near-continuous escalation in state-attributable casualties, driven primarily by the expansion of drone operations.

Drone Strike Escalation

• March 2025: Task Force launched; 15+ initial operations, killing ~115 gang members
• March–September 2025: 559 killed by drones, including 11 children
• August–October 2025: 29 drone operations documented[3]
• November 2025–January 21, 2026: 57 drone operations — nearly double the prior rate
• Full period (March 2025–January 2026): 141 operations, 1,243 killed
• Q1 2026: 69 civilian drone victims, 5 children

The acceleration of drone operations — with the strike rate roughly doubling between the August–October and November–January periods — directly correlates with the rising share of child casualties attributable to state actors.

IV. Assessment of UN Monitoring Frameworks

UNICEF Haiti Child Protection Monitoring

UNICEF Haiti has documented the crisis through humanitarian situation reports, country annual reports, and joint statements with BINUH. UNICEF's child protection monitoring confirms:

• 2024: Armed groups killed or injured 289 children; UNICEF flagged a 70% increase in child recruitment by late 2024
• 2025: UNICEF documented a 195–200% increase in child recruitment by armed groups, and verified that child recruitment nearly tripled compared to 2024
• 2025 Annual Report (SG CAAC, July 2026): 2,088 grave violations affecting 1,661 children, including recruitment and use of 892 children

However, UNICEF's published monitoring reports — including monthly SitReps and quarterly child protection briefs — do not systematically disaggregate child casualties by perpetrator type (PNH vs. Task Force vs. gangs vs. Bwa Kalé). UNICEF's primary framing centers on gang-recruited children and protection service delivery, rather than state-perpetrated child casualties specifically. The gap in perpetrator-disaggregated child data from UNICEF is a limitation that BINUH and OHCHR partially address but do not fully resolve.

UNICEF did hold a formal meeting with PNH leadership in November 2025, expressing "grave concern regarding the significant increase in serious violations against children, including gang abduction, murder, mutilation, exploitation, and sexual violence" — though the public readout did not explicitly address security-force-attributable child deaths.

BINUH Quarterly Reports

BINUH's quarterly human rights reports are the primary source of perpetrator-disaggregated casualty data. They confirm child casualties attributable to security operations in each quarterly period reviewed (Q1 2025 through Q1 2026). However, BINUH's disaggregation has limitations:

1. Child casualties within security operations are not consistently separated from overall security operation casualties. The report typically states that children represent X% of all victims, without always specifying whether security-force-attributable deaths are overrepresented or underrepresented in that percentage.
2. The Task Force is not formally denominated as the "SSTF" in any UN document reviewed. It is referred to as "the Task Force," "the government's Task Force," or "a specialized Task Force reportedly linked to the government." No UN report uses the acronym "SSTF."
3. Drone casualty figures for children are provided in key documents (September 20 strike, OHCHR consolidated data, Q1 2026 BINUH press release) but are not systematically reported quarter-by-quarter in a dedicated table.

UN SG Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC)

The UN Secretary-General's 2024 CAAC annual report recorded Haiti as a "situation of concern," noting 2,269 grave violations against 1,373 children in 2024. The report listed Haiti in the top five globally for rates of grave violations against children. The Viv Ansanm gang coalition was added to the SG report's annexes (the "list of shame") in 2025. As of the July 2026 BINUH/UNICEF joint statement, three additional gangs — Gran Grif, Kraze Barye, and 400 Mawozo — were added to the 2025 CAAC annexes.

No Haitian state actor (PNH or the Task Force) has been listed in the SG CAAC annexes, despite documented evidence of child casualties from security operations. This represents a significant accountability gap, as listing triggers formal engagement obligations under Security Council resolutions.

OHCHR Haiti Reports

OHCHR's Haiti monitoring has been the most explicit in characterizing security-force-attributable child deaths. Key OHCHR determinations include:

• The designation of "most drone strikes" as "likely unlawful under international human rights law"

• Verified killing of 54 children and maiming of 40 between March 1, 2025, and January 15, 2026 (all perpetrators)
• Documentation of 60 non-gang civilians killed and 49 injured in drone/helicopter operations (disaggregated: 7 boys and 6 girls killed; 7 boys and 3 girls injured) during the same period[17]
• In March 2026, Deputy High Commissioner Al-Nashif updated the Human Rights Council that Haiti's human rights crisis had reached "disastrous levels," citing the drone program as a primary concern.

HRW and Amnesty International

Human Rights Watch's March 2026 report provided the most granular operational dataset on the Task Force: 141 operations, 1,243 killed, 17 children among the dead. HRW documented the September 20, 2025, Simon Pelé strike in extensive detail through witness interviews, medical records, and geolocation analysis.[4[5]

Amnesty International's May 2026 report corroborated HRW's findings, added the Q1 2026 BINUH data, and specifically raised the issue of children being "disproportionately impacted by the use of such weapons with indiscriminate effects in urban settings," citing higher rates of death, lifelong disability, and compounded mental health consequences for children compared to adults.

V. Key Incidents: Children Killed by State Security Actors

VI. Legal and Accountability Framework

Applicable International Standards

Haiti has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which protects the right to life (Article 6). Under international human rights law, law enforcement may use lethal force only when "strictly unavoidable in order to protect the life of any person." The use of military-grade explosive weapons — including quadcopter drones armed with fragmentation charges — in densely populated urban law enforcement contexts creates a near-categorical violation risk, as these weapons cannot reliably distinguish between gang combatants and civilians, including children.

UN guidance on the use of force and firearms in law enforcement states that "military weapons" including explosive drones "may be inappropriate for law enforcement" and should generally "not be used in law enforcement" in offensive configurations. Amnesty International specifically highlighted that children face disproportionate risks from explosive weapons in urban areas due to physiological vulnerability and proximity to gang-controlled spaces due to poverty and displacement.

Accountability Gaps

Multiple accountability failures compound the child protection crisis:

1. No criminal prosecutions: As of Q1 2026, none of the 90 PNH Internal Affairs investigations opened in 2025 had been completed. The Haitian government has not announced any prosecutorial action against Task Force operators or Vectus Global personnel.
2. No reparations: Families of drone strike victims told HRW they had "not had any contact with government officials" and had no access to justice or compensation.
3. No CAAC listing for state actors: Despite verified child casualties from PNH and Task Force operations, neither has been added to the SG CAAC "list of shame" annexes.
4. Private military contractor opacity: Vectus Global, which reportedly operates the drone program, has not been subject to any public accountability mechanism. The US State Department issued an export license for its services, raising questions about US oversight obligations.
5. Miragoâne Prosecutor impunity: Jean Ernest Muscadin has carried out documented extrajudicial executions since 2022, with at least 83 recorded as of mid-2025, with no prosecutorial action.

VII. Data Gaps and Limitations

1. UNICEF's published child protection monitoring reports do not systematically attribute child casualties to security forces versus gangs. UNICEF's role in generating perpetrator-disaggregated child casualty data is secondary to BINUH/OHCHR in the Haiti context.

1. The "Special Security Task Force" (SSTF) is not formally named in UN documentation. It is consistently referred to as "the Task Force" or "the government's Task Force" coordinated through the Prime Minister's office. The acronym "SSTF" does not appear in reviewed BINUH, OHCHR, UNICEF, or HRW documents. Reports confirm its links to PNH leadership (the Inspector General became interim PNH head in August 2025) but maintain functional distinction.

1. Child casualty data from security operations is partially but not fully disaggregated by sub-actor type (PNH ground forces vs. Task Force drone strikes). The September 20, 2025 strike and OHCHR's March 2025–January 2026 consolidated data are the clearest perpetrator-specific datasets for drone-attributable child deaths.

1. Under-reporting is structural. BINUH acknowledges that "the true number of child casualties is likely to be much higher" than verified figures. Access constraints in gang-controlled areas where most casualties occur limit documentation capacity.

1. No dedicated UN Panel of Experts report on Haiti with child casualty data disaggregated by perpetrator was found in the sources reviewed. Haiti is monitored under the BINUH/OHCHR framework and the SG CAAC annual report, but not by a dedicated Panel of Experts with the type of granular disaggregated tables found, for example, in Yemen or DRC Panel of Experts reports.

VIII. Conclusions and Policy Implications

The documented record establishes — based on multiple independent UN and NGO sources — that Haitian state security forces, including both PNH specialized units and the government's Task Force operating with Vectus Global drones, have killed and maimed children in Haiti, and that this trend has substantially increased since the Task Force launched operations in March 2025.

Key findings:

• Security forces, not gangs, are now the leading cause of overall casualties in Haiti, accounting for 56–69% of killed and injured across every quarter from Q1 2025 through Q1 2026.

• At least 17 children were killed by Task Force drone strikes from March 2025 to January 2026 (HRW); OHCHR verified a parallel figure of 54 children killed and 40 maimed by all actors in the same period.
• The Simon Pelé strike of September 20, 2025 represents the single most lethal documented state-attributable child killing event: 9 children aged 3–12 killed in a single drone operation.[2]
• Summary executions by PNH specialized units specifically claimed at least two children in Q1 2025, in addition to two children documented in 2024.
• OHCHR High Commissioner Türk has explicitly declared "most of these drone strikes are likely unlawful under international human rights law", while HRW has characterized "at least some" strikes as "extrajudicial killings".

Policy-relevant gaps:

• Haiti needs a dedicated Panel of Experts mandate with child casualty disaggregation obligations, analogous to those established for other conflict situations under the CAAC framework.
• The UN Security Council should consider adding the Haitian government's Task Force / drone program to accountability monitoring mechanisms, consistent with the standards applied to state actors in other CAAC-listed situations.
• UNICEF should strengthen perpetrator-specific child casualty monitoring in its SitRep and annual report outputs to close the current attribution gap.
• The US government, as licensor of Vectus Global's export authorization, faces direct responsibility questions regarding the drone program's documented civilian and child fatalities.

This report was produced by AYITI INTEL / KreyòlGenius. All data is drawn from publicly available UN, OHCHR, UNICEF, HRW, Amnesty International, and Save the Children documents. All figures cited are from verified institutional sources. No data has been synthesized or estimated.