People displaced by gang violence gather at a refugee camp in the Bourdon neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on November 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

“More than 20,000 people have been displaced across Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in four days,” a United Nations agency said Saturday (November 16, 2024), as residents flee gang violence that has crippled the troubled Caribbean nation.

“The isolation of Port-au-Prince is amplifying an already dire humanitarian situation,” said Gregoire Goodstein, Haiti chief for the International Organization for Migration.

“Our ability to deliver aid is stretched to its limits. Without immediate international support, the suffering will worsen exponentially,” Mr. Goodstein added in a statement.

The IOM said that around 17,000 of the roughly 20,000 people recently forced to relocate were already in temporary housing, with many having been displaced multiple times.

“Such a scale of displacement has not been observed since August 2023,” the migration agency said in a news release.

Haiti saw Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime sworn in on Monday (November 18, 2024), replacing outgoing premier Garry Conille, who was appointed in May but became embroiled in a power struggle with the country’s unelected transitional council.

Violent crime in Port-au-Prince remains high, with well-armed gangs that control some 80 percent of the city routinely targeting civilians, even though a Kenyan-led international force has been deployed to help the outgunned Haitian police restore order.

Gang-related violence has caused nearly 4,000 deaths this year, according to the U.N. human rights office.

Haiti lost major links to the rest of the world this past week when the United States banned all civilian flights to the country for a month, after three jetliners approaching or departing Port-au-Prince were hit by gunfire.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a rare visit to violence-ravaged Haiti on Thursday (September 5, 2024) heard guarded optimism as he promised $45 million in aid, urged greater international support for a new security mission and sought concrete action toward elections.

Mr. Blinken was the highest-ranking U.S. official in nearly a decade to visit the country, which has been plagued by instability and whose capital had virtually been taken over by criminal gangs.

On Thursday, Mr. Blinken promised $45 million in humanitarian aid but voiced concern about the long-term future of a Kenya-led police force that has been tasked with stabilizing Port-au-Prince and beyond.

He said he would convene talks at the United Nations later this month to raise support for the force, which arrived two months ago and is known as the Multinational Security Support Mission.

“At this critical moment, we do need more funding, we do need more personnel, to sustain and carry out the objectives of this mission,” he said.

Meeting Mr. Blinken, interim Prime Minister Garry Conille acknowledged that Haiti faced an “extremely complex” situation but voiced hope.

“If our partners bear with us, commit to us, we will achieve the goals. Progress we’ve achieved so far is actually quite remarkable,” he said.

The top U.S. diplomat, too, saw reason for optimism.

“What I am seeing is tremendous resilience and the emergence— the reemergence— of hope,” Mr. Blinken said.

Speaking in French, Mr. Blinken addressed Haitians at a news conference: “We are with you.”

The senior U.S. official zipped in an armoured motorcade through crowded, pothole-ridden streets strewn with garbage for meetings in the safety of the U.S. ambassador’s residence, after arriving at an airport where limited commercial flights only recently resumed.

Seeking elections

Haiti has not held elections since 2016, widening a political vacuum that has worsened existing security and health crises.

In hopes of moving toward a more legitimate government, the United States and Caribbean nations recently worked to establish a transitional council representing key stakeholders, with Mr. Conille as interim Prime Minister.

“The critical next step that we talked about is setting up an electoral council. We hope to see that stood up soon,” Mr. Blinken told the coordinator of the transitional council.

Mr. Blinken acknowledged that greater security would be the “foundation” for all progress, including on elections.

The coordinator of the transitional council, Edgard Leblanc Fils, said he hoped to move toward the electoral council next week with a goal of elections in November 2025 and a transfer of power in February 2026.

“Progress has been made on security but there remains much to do,” Mr. Leblanc Fils said.

Gangs in recent years have taken over about 80 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince as any semblance of government evaporated.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has committed $360 million to the multinational mission meant to stabilize the country, including logistical support and equipment, but has also made clear it will not send US troops.

The mission is expected to include about 2,500 police officers, including from Bangladesh, Benin and Jamaica.

But its establishment was repeatedly set back both by a court in Kenya questioning the legality of the mission and by struggles to complete financing for the force, which is estimated to cost about $600 million per year.

To secure funding, the Biden administration has voiced willingness to make the mission a UN peacekeeping operation, after deliberately not putting the force under the UN flag due to grim past memories in Haiti.

The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, which deployed from 2004 to 2017, was tarnished by accusations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers and the force’s accidental introduction of cholera, which killed some 10,000 people.

As Mr. Blinken visited, Port-au-Prince was also facing a new energy challenge, with a key power plant going dark after being stormed by demonstrators angered by recurring blackouts.

Mr. Blinken also pressed Haitian leaders to take action against corruption, a serious concern in the country.

The last secretary of state to visit Haiti, John Kerry, met then-President Michel Martelly in 2015.

Last month, U.S. authorities slapped sanctions on Mr. Martelly, who mostly lives in Miami, for allegedly trafficking drugs destined for the United States.

Mr. Blinken said that the action against Mr. Martelly showed that “we will use every tool that we have to hold accountable those who facilitate violence, drug trafficking, instability.”

The U.S. Secretary of State did not stay overnight in Haiti, landing in Santo Domingo on Thursday for meetings with leaders of the Dominican Republic.

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.

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.)