Haiti: 28 gang members killed by police and residents of Port-au-Prince

Haitian police announced Tuesday that they had killed, with the support of residents of Port-au-Prince, 28 members of armed gangs after the latter had launched an offensive in the capital of this Caribbean country in the midst of chaos.

A sign of very high insecurity, Médecins sans frontières (MSF) will suspend its work in Port-au-Prince from Wednesday and accuse the police forces of violence and threats against him for more than a week.

During the night from Monday to Tuesday, police intercepted a truck and a minibus transporting armed gang members to Pétion-Ville, a wealthy commune in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince, and to the center of the capital, explained to theAFP the deputy spokesperson for the Haitian National Police, Lionel Lazarre.

The police then opened fire on these gang members and killed ten of them, according to the same source. While fleeing, others were then pursued and killed by residents organized into self-defense groups and by police officers.

According to a photographer from theAFPcorpses of people, described as members of these criminal gangs, were subsequently burned in a street in Pétion-Ville.

Since last week, Port-au-Prince has been shaken by a new outbreak of violence fueled by Live Together [Vivre ensemble]a gang alliance formed in February that managed to overthrow then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

This coalition launched an attack against Pétion-Ville as well as against the Bourdon and Canapé Vert districts after an appeal on social networks from one of its leaders, Jimmy Chérisier, alias Barbecue.

The latter has demanded the resignation of the presidential transitional council [CPT]the head of the executive, and promised that Viv Ansanm will use all her means to reach the start of the CPT.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is worried of the escalation of violence in Haitiaccording to its spokesperson, and urges urgent progress in the political transition.

However, the security situation has pushed MSF has suspend its activities in Port-au-Prince from Wednesday and until further notice following serious threats made against its staff by members of the Haitian police forces.

This ONG recalls in a press release that it denounced on November 13 incidents, which occurred two days earlier, when one of its ambulances was attacked, leading to the execution of at least two patients and an attack on medical staff.

In the week that followed, police officers stopped vehicles on several occasions. MSF and directly threatened staff, including threats of death and rapeshe denounces.

This violence occurs in the midst of a political crisis with the dismissal on November 10 by the CPT, of Prime Minister Garry Conille, who was replaced on the 11th by businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aimé.

He promised to restore security and organize the first elections since 2016.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, has long suffered from the violence of criminal gangs, accused of numerous murders, rapes, looting and kidnappings for ransom.

Last week, gunfire at three American airline planes prompted the US federal civil aviation regulator (FAA) to ban commercial flights between the United States and Haiti.

Port-au-Prince airport is closed.

Added to the violence is a catastrophic humanitarian situation which last week forced more than 20,000 people to move, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), something never seen before with such a magnitude […] since August 2023.

However, there is a multinational police support mission in Haiti. Supported by theHIM and by the United States, it is led by Kenya, which deployed a little more than 400 men there this summer.

The representation of theHIM in Haiti counted 1,233 murders between July and September, 45% of which were attributable to law enforcement and 47% to gangs, in a country of 12 million inhabitants.