The top U.N. official in Haiti says gangs have escalated their violence and expanded operations outside the capital, even attacking small boats and kidnapping personnel from cargo shipping companies.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haitian gangs are ramping up attacks on areas they do not yet control, the head of the United Nation's Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) warned on Tuesday, after days of renewed violence from an alliance of armed gangs in the Caribbean nation.

At least two women, including one who was eight months pregnant, were killed and 5,000 people displaced as Haitian gangs attacked neighborhoods in the impoverished Caribbean nation's capital, its Civil Protection agency said Monday.