“It was carnage”breathes Maurice, a French national in his thirties, living in Haiti for two years, who did not wish to give his last name. This thirty-year-old from Martinique had to hastily leave his apartment in Delmas, a residential town in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, the country's capital, on Tuesday, November 19. During the night from Monday to Tuesday, particularly violent clashes raged in its district of Bourdon and in the neighboring town of Pétion-Ville, between members of the gangs which control 80% of the agglomeration of 4 million inhabitants, the police and Bwa Kale groups, self-defense militias made up of local residents.
That night, the police intercepted “two bandit trucks” in this sector so far relatively spared by violence, continues the Martinican, who says he has “heard explosions” near his home. Several suspected gang members were killed on the spot by police during Monday evening's operation. Others then tried to flee on foot, but those who were caught by the population were lynched. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Haitian national police reported 28 bandits killed.
Near the Royal Oasis hotel, a four-star establishment in Pétion-Ville, “burned corpses, cut with machetes, littered the groundtestifies Maurice. We had to flee”. With some acquaintances, the thirty-year-old first took refuge “in the mountains above Port-au-Prince”before taking a helicopter on Wednesday for Cap-Haitien, the large city in the north of the country, safer than the capital. In the eyes of the survivor, the current situation is more serious than during the first outbreak of violence that Port-au-Prince experienced at the beginning of the year, when several gangs joined forces to bring down the government. “The fighting took place in the deprived areas of the lower part of the cityhe explains. [Maintenant,] everyone is trapped in Port-au-Prince. »
“Worsening of the situation”
In the Haitian capital, violence and impunity have been part of daily life for several years, but, according to the report published Wednesday by the United Nations, the week of November 11 was nightmarish throughout the city. “At least 150 people have been killed, 92 injured and around 20,000 forced to flee their homes over the past week”explained the UN in a press release. “The recent outbreak of violence in the Haitian capital is a sign of a worsening situation”worried Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, quoted in this press release.
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