section_path: History (since 2023)/2024
section_name: 2024
paragraph_text: 2024
  
  A UN report issued on 15 January indicated that in the preceding year there had been 2,490 kidnappings and 4,789 reported homicides. On 1 February, Joly Germine, a leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to smuggling arms such as " AK-47s, AR-15s, an M4 carbine rifle, an M1A rifle, and a.50 caliber rifle, described by the ATF as a military weapon," into Haiti, piloting the operation from a Haitian prison.
  
  On 13 March, an American blogger, Addison Pierre Maalouf, ignoring the "do not travel" recommendations of the U.S. State Department, was kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang while seeking to interview Jimmy Chérizier. He blamed corrupt police officers for the ambush which led to 17 days of captivity and $50,000 in ransom he says was paid to secure his release. According to Maalouf's father, who paid the ransom, pressure brought by Chérizier on gang-leader Lanmò Sanjou (literally "la mort sans jour") helped secure the blogger's release.
  
  A surge in gang violence caused significant casualties, with 1,554 deaths and 826 injuries in the first quarter of the year. Gangs used sexual violence as a means of control and punishment, with reports of women being raped during gang invasions of neighborhoods, often after witnessing the murder of their partners. Gangs are also known to force women into exploitative relationships and use the rape of hostages to extort ransoms from families. They are also known for recruiting children.