Blinding crisis: A man eats a meal as a child covers his face after receiving food at a shelter in Port-au-Prince on March 14.
| Photo Credit: AP

Haitians were on edge on March 15 awaiting the naming of a transitional governing body meant to restore stability to the country, wracked by gang violence and largely isolated from the outside world.

Attacks in the capital Port-au-Prince continued overnight, targeting the airport and a top police official’s home, while residents mounted roadblocks in two spots both to impede the criminal gangs and signal their own frustration.

Some are hoping a transitional council can fill the void left by departing Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is leaving amid pressure from an offensive by gangs that control 80% of the capital.

Yet many have decried the pending establishment of a transitional council, a move supported by Caribbean regional body CARICOM, the United Nations and the United States.

“I am in the street now and I am very angry,” resident Francois Nolin said, claiming that “the Americans are imposing certain conditions on us to run the country.”

Messy history

“White people have no right to meddle in our affairs. Instead of making things better, they will make them worse,” said Jesula, a Haitian woman who declined to give her last name.

The country has a long, brutal history of foreign interventions, from a 20-year American occupation in the early 1900s to a deadly cholera outbreak linked to a UN peacekeeping mission in the 2010s.

Gunfire on March 14 near the airport left one police officer wounded. The home of the top police commander was also pillaged and burned, the police union reported.

An overnight curfew was extended to March 17 in the Ouest department, which includes Port-au-Prince, to “retake control of the situation,” according to the Prime Minister’s office. A state of emergency is set to end April 3.

“There are great numbers of prison escapees on the streets,” said Port-au-Prince resident Edner Petit. “The situation is getting steadily worse.”

Underscoring the impact of the crisis on ordinary Haitians, the Haitian Medical Association on Thursday expressed “consternation” over the “forced closure of hospitals” and “acts of physical violence against care personnel.”

Naming new leadership

Mr. Henry, whose term in office was marked by rising gang violence, announced on March 11 he would resign once the transitional council is stood up.

President Jovenel Moise, who appointed Mr. Henry, was assassinated in 2021 and was never replaced. The country has not held elections since 2016.

CARICOM was holding an emergency meeting with representatives of Haiti, the United Nations and concerned countries including the United States.

The meeting charged Haitian political groups with establishing the transitional governing body, and most of those groups have submitted the names of their chosen representatives, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on March 15.

Members of the so-called December 21 Accord, the group supporting Mr. Henry, have struggled to agree on a single nominee but are in talks aimed at doing so.

The transition council is supposed to comprise seven voting members representing key political and private-sector forces in Haiti. It has been tasked with selecting an interim Prime Minister and nominating an “inclusive” Cabinet.

But several groups will be excluded: those charged with or convicted of crimes; those facing UN sanctions; anyone planning to take part in coming elections; and anyone who has opposed UN plans to deploy a multinational peace force in Haiti.

Kenya, which had agreed to provide a thousand police officers and lead that mission, said on Tuesday the deployment would be suspended until a presidential council is installed.

According to the World Food Programme, some 4.4 million Haitians suffer from acute hunger.

Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry speaks while addressing the nation, at an unidentified location on a date given as March 11, 2024, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced early on Tuesday that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created, capitulating to international pressure that seeks to save the country overwhelmed by violent gangs that some experts say have unleashed a low-scale civil war.

Mr. Henry made the announcement hours after officials including Caribbean leaders and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Jamaica to urgently discuss a solution to halt Haiti’s spiraling crisis.

Mr. Henry has been unable to enter Haiti because the violence closed its main international airports. He had arrived in Puerto Rico a week ago, after being barred from landing in the Dominican Republic, where officials said he lacked a required flight plan.

It was not immediately clear who would lead Haiti out of the crisis in which heavily armed gangs have burned police stations, attacked the main airport and raided two of the country’s biggest prisons.

Kingston:

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry has tendered his resignation as head of the Caribbean nation, the leader of a regional body said on Monday, an unelected role the 74-year-old neurosurgeon held since 2021.

“We acknowledge his resignation upon the establishment of a transitional presidential council and naming of an interim prime minister,” said Caribbean Community chair Irfaan Ali, also the president of Guyana, thanking Henry for his service to Haiti.

Henry traveled to Kenya late last month to secure its leadership of a United Nations-backed international security mission to help police fight armed gangs, but a drastic escalation of violence in the capital Port-au-Prince during his absence left him stranded in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

Henry’s resignation comes as regional leaders met earlier on Monday in nearby Jamaica to discuss the framework for a political transition, which the U.S. urged last week to be “expedited” while gangs called for Henry to step down.

Regional officials have been engaged in talks involving members of Haiti’s political parties, private sector, civil society and religious groups aimed at establishing the transition council that would pave the way to the first elections since 2016.

Henry, who many Haitians consider corrupt, had repeatedly postponed elections saying security must first be restored.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had earlier on Monday called for the creation of a “broad-based, inclusive, independent presidential college”.

This council would be tasked with meeting the “immediate needs” of Haitian people, enabling the security mission’s deployment and creating security conditions necessary for free elections, Blinken said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Port-Au-Prince:

Residents of Haiti’s capital scrambled for safety on Saturday following the latest spasm of gang violence, with a UN group warning of a “city under siege” after armed attackers targeted the presidential palace and police headquarters.

Criminal groups, which already control much of Port-au-Prince as well as roads leading to the rest of the country, have unleashed havoc in recent days as they try to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry as leader of the Western hemisphere’s poorest country.

On Saturday, dozens of residents were seeking safety in public buildings, with some successfully breaking into one facility, according to an AFP correspondent.

The unrest has seen 362,000 Haitians internally displaced — more than half of them children and some forced to move multiple times, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Saturday.

“Haitians are unable to lead a decent life. They are living in fear, and every day, every hour this situation carries on, the trauma gets worse,” Philippe Branchat, IOM’s chief in Haiti, said in a statement.

“People living in the capital are locked in, they have nowhere to go,” he said. “The capital is surrounded by armed groups and danger. It is a city under siege.”

Police on Friday night repelled gang attacks, including on the presidential palace, and several “bandits” were killed, Lionel Lazarre of the Haitian police union said. No police were among the victims.

The violence left burned-out vehicles, still smoldering, outside the Interior Ministry and on nearby streets, an AFP correspondent said.

Gunshots rang out late Friday throughout Port-au-Prince and witnesses recounted clashes “between police officers and bandits” as gangs apparently tried to commandeer police stations in the city center.

Lazarre on Saturday pleaded for “means and equipment” to protect police buildings and other key facilities.

State of emergency

The well-armed gangs have attacked key infrastructure in recent days, including two prisons, allowing the majority of their 3,800 inmates to escape.

Along with some ordinary Haitians, the gangs are seeking the resignation of Prime Minister Henry, who was due to leave office in February but instead agreed to a power-sharing deal with the opposition until new elections are held.

The United States has asked Henry to enact urgent political reform to prevent further escalation. But he was in Kenya when the violence broke out and is now reportedly stranded in the US territory of Puerto Rico.

After months of delays, the UN Security Council finally gave its green light in October for a multinational policing mission led by Kenya, but that deployment has been stalled by Kenyan courts.

Port-au-Prince and western Haiti have been placed under a month-long state of emergency and a nighttime curfew was in effect until Monday, though it was unlikely overstretched police could enforce it.

‘Running away’

In Port-au-Prince, Filienne Setoute told AFP how she had worked for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor for more than 20 years.

That job, she said, meant she “was able to build my own house. But now here I am, homeless. I’m fleeing without knowing where to go, it’s an abuse.”

“We haven’t been able to sleep since last night,” she added. “We’re running away.”

Haiti’s airport remained closed while the main port — a key point for food imports — reported looting since suspending services on Thursday, despite efforts to set up a security perimeter.

“If we cannot access those containers (full of food), Haiti will go hungry soon,” the NGO Mercy Corps warned in a statement.

CARICOM, an alliance of Caribbean nations, has summoned envoys from the United States, France, Canada and the United Nations to a meeting Monday in Jamaica to discuss the violence.

Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali said the meeting would take up “critical issues for the stabilization of security and the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance.”

The violence is threatening the country’s most vulnerable, including pregnant women and survivors of sexual violence, as the health system collapses.

Branchat, of IOM, deplored gang attacks on hospitals and “dire” lack of mental health services.

“Some hospitals have been run over by gangs and had to evacuate staff and patients, including newborns,” he said.

“Medical professionals across the capital are sounding the alarm as their capacity to deliver even the most basic medical services is severely diminished.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Haitian soldiers patrol near the Toussaint Louverture International Airport following a gunfight with armed gangs on the surroundings of the airport, as the government declared state of emergency, amid violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 4.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Heavily armed gangs tried to seize control of Haiti’s main international airport on March 4, exchanging gunfire with police and soldiers in the latest attack on key government sites in an explosion of violence that includes a mass escape from the country’s two biggest prisons.

The Toussaint Louverture International Airport was closed when the attack occurred, with no planes operating and no passengers on site.

Associated Press journalists saw an armoured truck on the tarmac shooting at gangs to try and prevent them from entering airport grounds as scores of employees and other workers fled from whizzing bullets.

It wasn’t immediately clear as of late Monday whether the attack, which was the biggest one in Haiti’s history involving the airport, was successful.

Last week, the airport was struck briefly by bullets amid ongoing gang attacks, but gangs did not enter the airport nor seize control of it.

The attack occurred just hours after authorities in Haiti ordered a night-time curfew following violence in which armed gang members overran the two biggest prisons and freed thousands of inmates over the weekend.

“The secretary-general is deeply concerned by the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Port-au-Prince, where armed gangs have intensified their attacks on critical infrastructure over the weekend,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

A 72-hour state of emergency began on Sunday night. The government said it would try to track down the escaped inmates, including from a penitentiary were the vast majority were in pre-trial detention, with some accused of slayings, kidnappings and other crimes.

“The police were ordered to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce the curfew and apprehend all offenders,” said a statement from Finance Minister Patrick Boivert, the acting Prime Minister.

Gangs already were estimated to control up to 80% of Port-au-Prince, the capital. They are increasingly coordinating their actions and choosing once unthinkable targets such as the Central Bank.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry travelled to Kenya last week to try to salvage support for a United Nations-backed security force to help stabilise Haiti in its conflict with the increasingly powerful crime groups.

Mr. Dujarric said the secretary-general stressed the need for urgent action, especially in providing financial support for the mission, “to address the pressing security requirements of the Haitian people and prevent the country from plunging further into chaos.”

Haiti’s National Police has roughly 9,000 officers to provide security for more than 11 million people, according to the United Nations. They are routinely overwhelmed and outgunned.

The deadly weekend marked a new low in Haiti’s downward spiral of violence. At least nine people had been killed since Thursday — four of them police officers — as gangs stepped up coordinated attacks on state institutions in Port-au-Prince, including the international airport and national soccer stadium.

But the attack on the National Penitentiary on Saturday shocked Haitians. All but 98 of the 3,798 inmates being held at the penitentiary escaped, according to the Office of Citizen Protection. Meanwhile, at the Croix-des-Bouquets prison, 1,033 escaped, including 298 convicts.

The official said on March 4 that it was seriously concerned about the safety of judges, prosecutors, victims, attorneys and others following the mass escape.

It added that it “deplored and condemned the policy of nonchalance” demonstrated by government officials amid the attacks. Following the raid at the penitentiary, three bodies with gunshot wounds lay at the prison entrance on Sunday.

In another neighbourhood, the bloodied corpses of two men with their hands tied behind the backs lay face down as residents walked past roadblocks set up with burning tires.

Among the few dozen people who chose to stay in prison are 18 former Colombian soldiers accused of working as mercenaries in the July 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

“Please, please help us,” one of the men, Francisco Uribe, said in a message widely shared on social media. “They are massacring people indiscriminately inside the cells.” Colombia’s Foreign Ministry has called on Haiti to provide “special protection” for the men. A second Port-au-Prince prison containing around 1,400 inmates also was overrun.

Gunfire was reported in several neighbourhoods in the capital. Internet service for many residents was down on Sunday as Haiti’s top mobile network said a fibre optic cable connection was slashed during the rampage.

After gangs opened fire at Haiti’s international airport last week, the U.S. Embassy said it was halting all official travel to the country. On Sunday night, it urged all American citizens to depart as soon as possible.

The Biden administration, which has refused to commit troops to any multinational force for Haiti while offering money and logistical support, said it was monitoring the rapidly deteriorating security situation with grave concern.

The surge in attacks follows violent protests that turned deadlier in recent days as the Prime Minister went to Kenya seeking to move ahead on the proposed U.N.-backed security mission to be led by that East African country.

Mr. Henry took over as Prime Minister following Moise’s assassination and has postponed plans to hold Parliamentary and Presidential elections, which haven’t happened in almost a decade.

Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who now runs a gang federation, has claimed responsibility for the surge in attacks. He said the goal is to capture Haiti’s police chief and government Ministers and prevent Mr. Henry’s return.

The Prime Minister has shrugged off calls for him to resign and didn’t comment when asked if he felt it was safe to come home.

A man, with his face covered, calls on demonstrators to stop during a protest against Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s government and insecurity, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

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Haiti’s government declared, on March 3, a state of emergency and a night-time curfew in a bid to quell a wave of violence sparked by a gang assault on the capital city’s main prison that allowed thousands of inmates to escape.

The government said in a statement the state of emergency and 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew would be effective from March 3 to Wednesday (March 6.)

Both measures would apply to the Ouest region which includes the capital Port-au-Prince, and would be subject to renewal. The government said the objective of the measures would be to allow it to “re-establish order and take the appropriate measures to take back control of the situation”.

Economy Minister Patrick Michel Boisvert signed the statement as the country’s acting Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry was in Kenya last week to sign an agreement to deploy police from the East African country to lead a UN-backed law and order mission to the gang-plagued Caribbean nation.