GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP)— The United Nations Human Rights Council agreed Tuesday to provide assistance in violence-ravaged Haiti, following government requests for international help to end the brutality.

The council asked the UN rights office to provide Haiti with “technical assistance and support for capacity-building in the promotion and protection of human rights”, and to appoint an expert to monitor the situation.

Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas, has been gripped by a political and economic crisis since the July 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moise, and gangs now control more than half the country.

“The barbary of the gangs has reached a high water mark,” Haiti’s ambassador Justin Viard told the council, pointing to how they “kidnap, execute, and burn alive old people, children, pregnant women.”

A number of diplomats took the floor to voice support.

“Haiti is confronting one of the worst situations of poverty and terror in the world,” said French ambassador Jerome Bonnafont.

“The scale of the problems is such that it requires the full attention and support of the international community.”

The UN rights office warned last month that the violence appeared to be spiralling out of control, with more than 530 people killed by gangs in Haiti since the start of the year.

Food prices have surged and half the population does not have enough to eat, it said.

In October, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres relayed a plea for help from Prime Minister Ariel Henry and asked the UN Security Council to send an international force to Haiti.

Despite statements of support for such a mission from various capitals, the proposal has not yet moved forward.

Tuesday’s resolution, which was adopted without a vote, called on UN member states and relevant UN agencies to support efforts by Haiti’s government “to combat the violence of the armed gangs”.

It ordered the UN rights office to provide technical assistance to help boost the promotion and protection of human rights within Haiti’s judiciary, security forces and prison administration, with the aim of restoring the rule of law.

The council asked the office to swiftly appoint an expert to monitor the rights situation in Haiti, paying special attention to women, children and human trafficking.

The resolution also ordered UN rights chief Volker Turk to present an interim report on the situation in Haiti to the council in September, and a full report next March.