Haitian ambassador warns criminal gangs may overrun country

The Haitian ambassador to Washington has appealed to the international community to accelerate talks on deploying an armed intervention, warning that criminal gangs were in danger of taking over the country.

Bocchit Edmond made his appeal as efforts to agree to a UN resolution backing such a force appear to have stalled, and as the US and Canada have been holding urgent talks looking for ways to break the impasse.

Ned Price, the state department spokesman, said that intensive diplomatic work at the UN and outside would continue.

There is widespread apprehension that such an intervention could mire the countries sending troops in a protracted struggle with no clear exit, as had happened with previous UN forces.

Haitian activists have also warned that intervention could exacerbate the violence without offering a long-term solution. Peacekeepers deployed after a devastating 2010 earthquake were accused of systematic sexual abuse of Haitian women, and introduced a cholera outbreak which killed 10,000 and took nine years to eradicate.

Edmond, the Haitian ambassador, said a method would need to be found to get around those hurdles.