Washington (AFP) – The United States said Friday it has designated two of the gangs that wreak havoc while controlling most of Haiti’s capital as foreign terrorist groups.

These gangs are Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

“The age of impunity for those supporting violence in Haiti is over,” Rubio said.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, has for years been in the grips of well armed street gangs that carry out murders, kidnappings, rapes and other crimes as Haiti suffers from chronic political instability.

More than 1,600 people were killed in Haiti gang violence – most of them gang members – in the first three months of 2025, the United Nations said Wednesday.

“Haitian gangs, including the Viv Ansanm coalition and Gran Grif, are the primary source of instability and violence in Haiti,” Rubio said. “They are a direct threat to US national security interests in our region.”

He said the gang’s ultimate goal is to overthrow the government and set up a state in which they can commit crime freely and terrorize people.

The United States had already designated other gangs as terrorist groups, such as the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico, the Venezuela-based group Tren de Aragua and MS-13, with roots in El Salvador.

Haiti is run by a weak transitional government and has endured a rise in violence since February.

Gangs control 85 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince, according to the UN, and have stepped up attacks on areas not yet under their control.

More than one million have been displaced by gang violence, the UN said.

Thousands of Haitians protested gang-control in April, marching on the offices of the transitional governing body that has failed to restore order nearly a year after its creation.

Haiti has not held an election since 2016 and the man elected president then, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in 2021.

The current violence has continued despite the deployment of an international security force led by Kenya that is supposed to help the overwhelmed and outgunned Haitian police.

This mission authorized by the United Nations has about 1,000 police from six countries, well short of the 2,500 the force was supposed to have.