New gang violence in Haiti displaces hundreds of people

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A new wave of gang violence in Haiti’s capital forced hundreds to flee their homes over the weekend, leaving families scattered along the road to the country’s main airport on Monday.

Monique Verdieux, 56, fled to the highway after watching armed men burning houses in her neighborhood. Her family scattered in different directions and she said she’s not sure where they are.

“I am now sleeping in the street,” Verdieux said, noting it was unsafe to return.

Gangs have overtaken more than 90% of Port-au-Prince since the assassination of President Jovenal Moïse in July 2021 at his home. Police say they have expanded their activities — including looting, kidnapping, sexual assaults and rape — into the countryside. Haiti has not had a president since the assassination.

In a statement released Monday, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders announced the evacuation of its hospital in Cité Soleil following intense clashes in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood on Sunday. The organization, known by its French acronym MSF, reported treating over 40 gunshot victims within 12 hours while providing temporary shelter to 800 people fleeing the violence. One of those injured was a security guard who was hit by a stray bullet in the hospital’s grounds.

“We managed to evacuate him and his condition is now stable,” said Davina Hayles, MSF’s head of mission in Haiti. “But it is unthinkable that our teams and civilians should become victims of these clashes.”

For the past two weeks, Haitian rum maker Barbancourt and two of the nation’s largest bottlers have also warned about deteriorating security conditions near Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport, where operations are now severely restricted.

In a statement released on Sunday, the companies said that the government’s response to the crisis has been “largely insufficient,” and noted that the poor state of the roads leading to the airport makes it difficult for Haitian security forces to patrol the area. The companies are among Haiti’s main fiscal contributors.

“You cannot secure an airport if you allow the roads around it to degrade,” the statement read.

In April, the first foreign troops linked to a U.N. force arrived in Haiti to help quell ongoing violence.

The U.N. Security Council in late September approved a plan to authorize a 5,550-member force, which has not fully arrived in the island nation. An unknown number of troops from Chad have so far been deployed.

A report published earlier this year by the International Organization for Migration found that gang violence has displaced more than 1.4 million people in Haiti, with approximately 200,000 of them now living in crowded and underfunded sites in the nation’s capital.

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