Gangs make advances as conditions in Haiti worsen
UNITED NATIONS, United States: Haiti's gangs have made advances in Port-au-Prince, a UN official reported Thursday, with political parties inching toward forming a transition government and new bloodshed roiling the troubled Caribbean nation.
Police in Port-au-Prince confirmed that a major gang leader, Ernst Julme, known as Ti Greg, was slain in a clash with security forces. Julme led the Delmas 95 gang.
Addressing a news conference from Haiti via videolink, Ulrika Richardson, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the country, said daily life had become defined by roadblocks and the sound of gunshots, describing “enormous” amounts of people displaced as gangs “take over” neighbourhoods in the city.
The country has been rocked by violence since late February, when the country's gangs launched a coordinated offensive, raiding a prison and releasing thousands of inmates as they demanded Prime Minister Ariel Henry resign.
Henry, stranded in Puerto Rico after the violence shut down the main airport, has since agreed to step down and allow the formation of an interim government. But negotiations have been slow despite pressure from neighboring Caribbean countries and the United States.
Meanwhile police are struggling as armed groups in recent days “advanced into new areas of the capital,” Richardson told reporters.
“We see people coming in with gunshot wounds from many areas around Port-au-Prince.”
The UN Security Council called on countries to enforce an existing arms embargo on Haiti, amid “grave concern at the illicit flow of arms and ammunition into Haiti that remains a fundamental factor of instability and violence.”
“The members of the Security Council reiterated their full support for a Haitian-led, Haitian-owned political process,” the Security Council statement said, urging the eventual organisation of “free and fair legislative and presidential elections.”
President Jovenel Moise, who appointed Henry, was assassinated in 2021 and never replaced. Henry has led the country since, with no elections held since 2016.