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.

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.