Haiti: Situation Remains Complex, High Levels of Violence

March 27, 2024 Hour: 5:14 pm

Haiti’s landscape today continues to escalate in complexity with continued high levels of gang violence and a stalled process to put the Presidential Transitional Council in place.

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The shootings in Port-au-Prince continue unabated, the dead lying and incinerated in different streets of the capital, which is 80 percent controlled by criminal gangs, some of them driven by personal interests and others responding to politicians with ambitions for power, according to local media.

Adding to the chain of problems is the food insecurity suffered by almost five million people, due to the high price of food, the impossibility of transporting it, and the fact that no ships have docked at the Port-au-Prince maritime terminal since 5 March.

Foreigners continue to leave the country in helicopters that take them to the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

France has evacuated more than 170 nationals and around 70 people of other nationalities on army helicopters from violence hit Haiti, foreign ministry says pic.twitter.com/sDNUkTVDje

— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow)
March 27, 2024

Almost all activities are paralyzed, some banks are open for only half a day, and many branches are unable to provide services because their staff are unable to reach them due to the crossfire in their neighborhoods. Public administration and schools are not functioning.

Flights have not yet resumed at Toussaint Louverture International Airport, a terminal closed more than 15 days ago when criminal gangs were stationed with automatic machine guns to prevent the arrival in the country of Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry, and thus make him resign, an objective achieved by the thugs.

Meanwhile, police continue to be targeted by gangs in Haiti, where thugs prey on them after hours.

Guns trafficked from the U.S. to Haiti are fueling violence in the country. A United Nations report found every type of gun is flooding Port-au-Prince, including AK47s and machine guns. #cgtnamerica pic.twitter.com/tTlEZjHJDG

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial)
March 27, 2024

The Haitian National Police Union reported that officer Joveny Duplan, class 27, was driving in a private car at Carrefour Vincent in the town of Croix-des-Bouquets.

The gang members intercepted him and opened fire on the officer belonging to the Corps d’Intervention de Maintien de l’Ordre. In the attack, according to the online newspaper Le Facteur Haiti, two of Duplan’s colleagues in arms were wounded.

The election of the head of Haiti’s Presidential Transitional Council, the body in charge of the country’s political order, was postponed for 72 hours.