UNITED NATIONS (CMC) — Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations and the newly-elected president of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Bob Rae, says more work needs to be done to bolster support for Haiti’s police force as gang violence continues to rock the French-speaking Caribbean country.

“Haiti is still really, really struggling,” Rae told UN News on Monday after returning from Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.

While there, Rae said he had meetings with the prime minister, transitional council, authorities, aid organisations and Haitians themselves, “who said security is their key priority”.

Rae said the multinational security support mission operating in Haiti since June is making gains, including shifting the area of operation of some of the gang activity in the capital away from two key hospitals and the main port.

But he lamented that more progress is needed, as it was impossible to say the country “had turned a corner”.

“I got a chance to get out and see what’s going on in Port-au-Prince,” the Canadian envoy said. “The displacement problem is huge. There are now about half a million people who have been displaced by the violence and by the gang activities.

“I want to get people back into school, with the school year starting in October, but the problem is that many schools have been taken over by people who’ve been displaced,” he added. “There’s a practical problem as to how to solve this.”

“I wanted to see it for myself from a humanitarian point of view,” Rae continued. “Haiti is still really, really struggling. It was good to see people out in the street in a positive way, going to the market, doing things, selling things, talking to each other. This is possible now, but it is impossible to say that we have turned a corner. We haven’t turned a corner yet, but we’re making some progress.”

Rae said the big issue for the Haitian people is security.

“They feel personally insecure,” he said. “They don’t feel safe. Their daughters could get raped crossing the street. They could get kidnapped for cash. The gangs have taken over large parts of the city,” he added. “They’ve burned out houses, taken over large neighbourhoods, run parts of the city like a like a personal kingdom. They’re brutal. These gang leaders are brutal. They kill people, and many thousands have died.”

The ECOSOC president said the other key element for Haiti is hope, based on “seeing a way forward, seeing a path ahead.

“This is how things work out. We’re not there yet,” he said. “Those are the two things I think are key. It’s going to take a lot of effort to get those two things working.”

Rae said he “had a sense” that the multinational security support mission, headed by Kenyan forces, is “working effectively” with the Haitian National Police.

“Parts of the airport is secure, and flights are coming in,” he said. “The area of concentration of the gangs has been moved and shifted. A couple of the big hospitals have been able to be freed from gang control. The port is more open than it was.

“Right now, they still haven’t been able to secure the main highways in the country, and we need to move forward in Port-au-Prince,” he added. “We also have to make sure that the rest of the country stays relatively secure. The security situation in the south is not as bad as it has been in in Port-au-Prince,” he added

“There is still work to be done to make sure the force is big enough and effective enough to make the kind of progress that we need,” Rae continued. “I think there is a number of things that have to be settled in terms of the protocols and engagement from a number of countries. We’ve got to make sure the medevac system is in place along with other elements.”

The envoy said Canada has been doing everything it can to assist Haiti, stating that the country has been “very involved” in the training of a number of the police volunteers.

He also said there’s “enormous work to be done” on continuing efforts to raise money for the humanitarian effort “because there are so many displaced people and so many people without food and without the kind of food security that they need.

“We need a development plan that’s supported by the international financial institutions and by all the neighbouring countries,” Rae said. “That’s a tall order, but we think we know what we have to do.”