Gang mayhem rocks Haiti’s capital
Gangs in Haiti laid siege to several neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince, burning homes and exchanging gunfire with police for hours as hundreds yesterday fled the violence in one of the biggest attacks since Haiti’s new prime minister was announced.
The attacks began on Thursday in neighbourhoods southwest of the main international airport, which has remained closed for nearly two months amid gang violence.
“The gangs started burning everything in sight,” said a man called Nene, who declined to give his last name out of fear.
The neighbourhoods that once bustled with traffic and pedestrians were like ghost towns shortly after sunrise, with a heavy silence blanketing the area.
An armoured police truck patrolled the streets, rolling past charred vehicles and cinderblock walls where someone had scrawled “Viv Babecue,” a reference to one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders.
People whose homes were spared in the attack clutched fans, stoves, mattresses and plastic bags filled with clothes as they fled by foot, motorcycle or on colourful small buses known as tap-taps.
Others were walking emptyhanded, having lost everything.
One of the attacks occurred in an area controlled by Jimmy Cherizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue, leader of the powerful gang federation G9 Family and Allies.
He and other gang leaders have been blamed for co-ordinated attacks that began on February 29 across the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Gunmen have burned police stations, opened fire on the main international airport and stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4000 inmates.
The attacks eventually forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign and led to the creation of a transitional presidential council whose majority announced a new Prime Minister on Wednesday: Fritz Belizaire, a former sports minister.