U.N. opens support office in Haiti and sets up Santo Domingo logistics hub ahead of gang suppression force operations
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Summary
The U.N. announced a new support office in Port‑au‑Prince, named an interim director and opened a Santo Domingo logistics hub supplying HR, finance and travel services; the office will provide logistics support to a planned gang suppression force, but deployment timelines were not provided.
An unidentified U.N. spokesperson (Speaker 1) announced that the U.N. has established a UN Support Office in Port‑au‑Prince to provide logistical support for the gang suppression force called for in Security Council action. The speaker said the interim director, Steven McCowan, has been selected and arrived in Port‑au‑Prince over the weekend and that about 37 staff are now deployed there.
The spokesperson said a second office in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, was established to provide transactional human resources, finance and travel services to both the support office and the U.N. political mission (Binu). Approximately 15 staff were reported to be setting up those services, and additional equipment shipments were described as arriving from a U.N. logistics base and from Baghdad.
The briefing referred to a Security Council resolution cited in the transcript as 'resolution 27 93' requesting establishment of the office and setting timelines for providing logistical support and mission services; the speaker said the office remains on track to meet the timelines in that resolution but did not provide independent verification of the resolution number or the internal timelines. When asked directly about the deployment timetable for the gang suppression force, the spokesperson said the U.N. support office is not responsible for the force's timeline and advised reporters to ask the members of the force for deployment specifics.
The spokesperson noted cooperation with the government of the Dominican Republic on land‑use agreements for the civilian footprint of the support office and thanked the government of Iraq for expediting approvals to transfer equipment from another mission. No dates were provided for full operational capability of the support office or for the force's deployment schedule.
Next steps: the U.N. said it would continue setting up the logistical and administrative functions in Santo Domingo and Port‑au‑Prince; the briefing did not announce a formal date for when the support office would reach full operational capacity.