Four police officers died in exchanges of fire Thursday with gangs in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, according to their union, with one of the largest armed groups involved having earlier spoken of coordinated attacks to overthrow the disputed prime minister Ariel Henry.
Since the assassination in 2021 of President Jovenel Moïse, Haiti has faced a serious political, security and humanitarian crisis. Armed gangs have taken control of swaths of the country and the number of homicides will more than double in 2023.
In power since 2021, Ariel Henry should have left office at the beginning of February.
Thursday’s violence left four dead and five injured in the ranks of the police, told AFP Lionel Lazarre, head of the national union of Haitian police officers. Two sub-police stations were set on fire, he added.
In a video posted Thursday on social networks, gang leader Jimmy Chérisier, alias Barbecue, affirmed that “all armed groups will act to obtain the departure of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.”
“We will use all strategies to achieve this objective. We take responsibility for everything that is happening in the streets at the moment,” he added, a few hours after the attacks began.
The latter coincide with the 20th anniversary of the coup d’état which ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power and come at a time when Ariel Henry is in Kenya.
This country is to lead a UN-approved multinational mission to help police fight gangs. On Thursday, the UN announced that five countries (Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin and Chad) had confirmed their participation.
But United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres insisted Thursday on the importance of reaching a “political solution” in Haiti. “Without a political solution, the problem will never be resolved,” declared Mr. Guterres upon his arrival on the archipelago of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a small Caribbean country located southeast of Haiti.
Heavy gunfire was heard Thursday in several neighborhoods in the Port-au-Prince area, with security forces trying to repel the attackers who targeted police stations, the police academy and other strategic sites such as the Toussaint-Louverture international airport.
Canceled flights
A police officer fires tear gas at demonstrators demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, February 7, 2024 / Richard PIERRIN / AFP
Schools, universities and various public and private institutions have suspended their activities while hundreds of people have taken refuge in their homes.
Students from the State University of Haiti were taken hostage before being released, the dean of the faculty of agronomy Jocelyn Louissaint told AFP. At least one student was shot and injured in the attack, he said.
Several airlines canceled domestic and international flights after projectiles hit planes and parts of a terminal at Toussaint-Louverture airport.
The Haitian company Sunrise Airways announced in a press release that it had “decided to suspend all its flights until further notice, in order not to endanger travelers, ground teams, crews or aircraft.”
The American companies Spirit Airlines and American Airlines also canceled their flights to and from Port-au-Prince.
To try to help the police overwhelmed by gang violence, the UN Security Council gave its agreement in October to send a mission to Haiti led by Kenya.
But its deployment is still pending, a court in Nairobi having blocked the planned dispatch of 1,000 Kenyan police officers at the end of January.
The month of January 2024 was “the most violent in more than two years” in Haiti, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which deplores that the “already disastrous situation” has “further deteriorated, against a backdrop of relentless and increasing gang violence.”
The UN on Tuesday launched an appeal for donations of $674 million to help 3.6 million people in Haiti, a country facing one of the most serious food crises in the world.
