Haiti's National Penitentiary on fire, in Port-au-Prince
By Daphne Psaledakis and Patricia Zengerle
By Daphne Psaledakis and Patricia Zengerle
Fri, March 15, 2024
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers are refusing to release millions of dollars in funding that Washington views as critical to help tackle spiraling violence in Haiti, in another potential stumbling block for the international force.
Representatives Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on Senate Foreign Relations, have both put "holds" on $40 million requested by the U.S. State Department, warning the administration they need "a lot more details" before it gets more funding.
Congressional aides said the money being held could prevent deployment of the Kenyan police force to Haiti, unless another country stepped up to fill in the gap. The $40 million would cover costs essential to the mission.
The State Department is engaging with Congress on approval for the funds, a senior State Department official said.
"We think it's critical for deployment," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Gang violence has spiraled in Haiti, fueling a humanitarian crisis, cutting off food supplies and forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes. Prime Minister Ariel Henry pledged on Monday to resign as soon as a transition council and temporary leader were chosen.
Countries have been slow to offer support and doubts have grown after Kenya - which had pledged to lead it - announced it was pausing the deployment after Henry announced he would resign.
Kenya's government pledged 1,000 officers to lead an international security force last July, but the initiative has been tied up in court challenges and Kenya has asked to be paid upfront.
US PLEDGE INCREASED TO $300 MILLION
The U.S. is the largest backer for the force, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced at talks on Monday in Jamaica that the U.S. was upping its pledge to $300 million.
"Given the long history of U.S. involvement in Haiti with few successful results, the administration owes Congress a lot more details in a more timely manner before it gets more funding," Risch and McCaul said in a joint statement.
The lawmakers said President Joe Biden's administration had only sent them a "rough plan" to address the crisis. They have concerns over whether Kenyan courts would allow the deployment and whether the force could get to Port-au-Prince.
The first State Department official said 68 briefings had been held with Congress on the situation in Haiti and the force, adding that $50 million in funds, including what is being held, would go toward equipment for the force, training, personnel kits and uniforms.
Of that, $10 million that has been released has already been obligated, including to reimburse Kenya for training, the official said.
The Department of Defense’s contribution of $200 million, which would support logistics, supplies and services to contributing countries, is already approved by Congress, a Pentagon spokesperson said.
A second senior State Department official said the U.S. has also been encouraging other nations to make contributions, but the challenge is "unprecedented global crises," including Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Keith Mines, vice president for Latin America at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said he would be surprised if Kenya can send its police before receiving funds.
"I don't think they can go at all until the funding is there," Mines said.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington and Aaron Ross in Nairobi; Editing by Don Durfee and Lincoln Feast.)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers are refusing to release millions of dollars in funding that Washington views as critical to help tackle spiraling violence in Haiti, in another potential stumbling block for the international force.
Representatives Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on Senate Foreign Relations, have both put "holds" on $40 million requested by the U.S. State Department, warning the administration they need "a lot more details" before it gets more funding.
Congressional aides said the money being held could prevent deployment of the Kenyan police force to Haiti, unless another country stepped up to fill in the gap. The $40 million would cover costs essential to the mission.
The State Department is engaging with Congress on approval for the funds, a senior State Department official said.
"We think it's critical for deployment," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Gang violence has spiraled in Haiti, fueling a humanitarian crisis, cutting off food supplies and forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes. Prime Minister Ariel Henry pledged on Monday to resign as soon as a transition council and temporary leader were chosen.
Countries have been slow to offer support and doubts have grown after Kenya - which had pledged to lead it - announced it was pausing the deployment after Henry announced he would resign.
Kenya's government pledged 1,000 officers to lead an international security force last July, but the initiative has been tied up in court challenges and Kenya has asked to be paid upfront.
US PLEDGE INCREASED TO $300 MILLION
The U.S. is the largest backer for the force, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced at talks on Monday in Jamaica that the U.S. was upping its pledge to $300 million.
"Given the long history of U.S. involvement in Haiti with few successful results, the administration owes Congress a lot more details in a more timely manner before it gets more funding," Risch and McCaul said in a joint statement.
The lawmakers said President Joe Biden's administration had only sent them a "rough plan" to address the crisis. They have concerns over whether Kenyan courts would allow the deployment and whether the force could get to Port-au-Prince.
The first State Department official said 68 briefings had been held with Congress on the situation in Haiti and the force, adding that $50 million in funds, including what is being held, would go toward equipment for the force, training, personnel kits and uniforms.
Of that, $10 million that has been released has already been obligated, including to reimburse Kenya for training, the official said.
The Department of Defense’s contribution of $200 million, which would support logistics, supplies and services to contributing countries, is already approved by Congress, a Pentagon spokesperson said.
A second senior State Department official said the U.S. has also been encouraging other nations to make contributions, but the challenge is "unprecedented global crises," including Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Keith Mines, vice president for Latin America at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said he would be surprised if Kenya can send its police before receiving funds.
"I don't think they can go at all until the funding is there," Mines said.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington and Aaron Ross in Nairobi; Editing by Don Durfee and Lincoln Feast.)
Gangs unleash new attacks on upscale areas in Haiti's capital, with at least a dozen killed nearby
PIERRE-RICHARD LUXAMA and ODELYN JOSEPH
Mon, March 18, 2024
Haiti Violence
The relative, below, of a person found dead in the street reacts after an overnight shooting in the Petion Ville neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, March 18, 2024.
Bodies found in Haitian suburb as gang violence rages for third week
AFP
Mon, March 18, 2024
Paramedics carry the body of a person killed by gang members in Petionville, Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Clarens SIFFROY)
Fourteen bodies were found in an affluent suburb of Haiti's capital Monday, as international efforts accelerated to fill a political vacuum created by weeks of gang violence that has forced the impending departure of the prime minister.
Local residents told AFP they did not know the circumstances of the deaths but said that the Laboule and Thomassin neighborhoods, in the suburb of Petion-Ville, had been under attack by what they said were armed criminals since dawn.
Witnesses said gang members attacked a bank, a gas station and homes in the area. Gunfire continued to ring out in Petion-Ville in the afternoon.
"They came wearing balaclavas in their cars, on motorcycles, with their own ambulance, then they massacred the population of Petion-Ville," said local resident Vincent Jean Robert.
"I was on my motorcycle when they arrived and started shooting," a motorcycle taxi driver named Cadet told AFP, while adding, "We don't know if it's bandits or the police who were behind this."
He suspected that the victims were those who had been out late at night, "searching for something to eat for their children."
Amid the violence Monday morning, a judge narrowly escaped an attack on his home, a relative told AFP.
Haiti has been engulfed for three weeks in a gang uprising by well-armed groups saying they want to topple Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Last week Henry agreed to step aside to allow the formation of an interim government, following pressure from neighboring Caribbean countries, including the CARICOM regional body, and the United States.
The situation remains dire even as Washington voiced hope Monday that a transitional body to lead the country, set up at a crisis meeting a week ago, could be ready "as soon as today" -- though as of that evening nothing had been announced.
"I understand that Haitian stakeholders are very close to finalizing membership and remain in active discussions with CARICOM leaders as it relates to the makeup of the Transitional Presidential Council," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters in Washington.
"The announcement of this council, we believe, will help pave the way for free and fair elections and the deployment of the Multinational Security Support Mission," he said, referring to a UN-backed, Kenyan-led force that aims to bring stability to Haiti.
- 'Famine and malnutrition' -
The council, which will include seven voting and two observer members representing a broad spectrum in Haiti and its diaspora, will be in charge of naming an interim government before elections, which have not been held since 2016.
Ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Haiti Monday, deputy US ambassador Robert Wood had told journalists that a decision on the make-up of the transitional council was "close."
After the closed-door session, Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith noted that talks "are progressing well," though she added "it's a difficult process."
The Security Council meeting came as the United Nations announced that the first helicopter flights had begun in an air bridge set up between Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic to deliver aid.
UNICEF, the United Nations' children's agency, offered a bleak assessment of the situation in the country over the weekend, saying Sunday it was "almost like a scene out of 'Mad Max,'" and warning people were suffering "famine and malnutrition" with aid groups unable to gain access.
That same day, a curfew was extended until Wednesday in the Ouest department, which includes Port-au-Prince. A state of emergency is set to end April 3.
Several countries including the US and European Union member states have evacuated diplomatic personnel from Haiti due to the crisis.
Meanwhile, efforts are continuing to organize Nairobi's security mission to back up Haiti's overwhelmed police force.
Ten killed in Port-au-Prince suburb as tensions rise in Haiti
Reuters
Updated Mon, March 18, 2024
People react at a crime scene, in Port-au-Prince
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -At least ten people were killed in a wealthy suburb of Haiti's capital on Monday, there were reports of looting, and thefts of electricity equipment cut the power supply as lawlessness spread to affluent areas and gangs tightened their grip on the city.
A Reuters witness saw at least ten dead bodies, at least some of which had bulletholes, on Monday morning in the streets of upscale Petion-Ville on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, which were later removed by ambulance. Authorities have not commented on the events surrounding the deaths.
Haitians also reported gunfire and looting on Monday morning in the nearby area of Laboule. Later, the streets around Petion-Ville were practically deserted.
Meanwhile, the EDH electricity service said several stations had been attacked and that cables, batteries and documents were stolen.
Armed gangs who have been increasing their power in recent years took advantage of the absence earlier this month of Prime Minister Ariel Henry to escalate violence, attacking infrastructure including police stations and government offices.
Under international pressure and stranded in Puerto Rico, the unelected Henry announced his resignation pending the appointment of a council and temporary replacement a week ago, but the transition council has yet to be appointed amid disagreements by some of the groups putting forward representatives.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said the council's membership could be finalized "very soon," and that an update could come later on Monday.
Local media reported Haiti's Catholic Church would not participate in the council, as had been previously expected, in order to maintain a "moral distance," although it was quoted as saying that it hoped all sectors would seek a resolution to the crisis.
The church's episcopal council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Leaders of the armed groups who have long sought to oust Henry have warned of a "battle" for Haiti and threatened politicians who join the transition council. Residents are facing worsening shortages of food and medical care as shipping firms have changed routes.
Over the weekend, U.N. children's agency UNICEF said one of its containers of "essential items" for maternal, neo-natal and childcare was stolen from Haiti's main port.
The international presence in Haiti has declined as the insecurity has risen.
The United Nations and U.S. and Canadian embassies have withdrawn staff this month.
Over the weekend, the Dominican Republic - which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti - evacuated dozens of its citizens by helicopter, while the Philippines' PNA state news agency said it would repatriate at least 63 of 115 nationals and was looking for options such as chartering a flight. Commercial flights have been suspended.
Around 17,000 people left the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area last week, according to U.N. estimates. Many of those had already been displaced.
Neighboring countries have been bolstering their borders. Plans for an international intervention, which Haiti's government requested in 2022 and was ratified by the U.N. nearly six months ago, remain on hold.
(Reporting by Ralph Tedy Erol and Harold Isaac in Port-au-Prince and Sarah Morland in Mexico City; Writing by Natalia Siniawski; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Rosalba O'Brien)
Vigilantes battle gangs in Port-au-Prince as Haiti’s elites vie for power
Caitlin Stephen Hu, David Culver and Evelio Contreras, CNN
Mon, March 18, 2024 at 7:18 PM MDT·8 min read
The wide road that passes in front of Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport has a post-apocalyptic stillness these days. Where cars and crowds of people once massed, only tendrils of smoke rise from smoldering piles of trash, sending a bitter taste into the air.
An armored police vehicle hulks nearby; the few police officers on watch cover their faces with balaclavas. This street looks nearly abandoned, as if in the wake of a disaster – an experience that people in Port-au-Prince know better than most. But leaving the city isn’t an option this time; the airport, under siege by gangs, has been forced to close.
Since the start of the month, criminal groups have been attacking with unprecedented coordination the last remnants of the Haitian state – the airport, police stations, government buildings, the National Penitentiary. The culmination of years of growing gang control and popular unrest, their joint assault forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign last week, a stunning capitulation that has nevertheless proven futile in restoring calm.
Port-au-Prince’s gangs are still choking off the supply of food, fuel and water across the city. Perhaps the last functional part of the state, Haiti’s National Police, continue to fight, battling to reclaim ground block by block across the city. But the very life of the city they are fighting for seems to be waning, as intensive urban warfare grinds down on basic human ties.
The social fabric is fraying as businesses and schools stay shuttered. Many residents self-isolate, afraid to leave their homes. Some have turned to vigilantism. Fear, mistrust, and anger reign. Death is on everyone’s mind.
Vigilante justice, approved by the police
In the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Canapé Vert on Monday, crowds seized a man they accused of belonging to a nearby gang – forcing him to walk down the road toward a cemetery before killing him and setting his body on fire in the street, sources in the community told CNN.
Videos seen by CNN showed remains smoking on the pavement in front of a shuttered supermarket, adding to a stretch of thick black soot. At this corner, the indelible mark of extrajudicial executions is all that remains of hundreds of suspected criminals killed by residents, their bodies disposed of by flame according to a local security source.
Gangs have long haunted the residents of Port-au-Prince, but their reach has dramatically expanded over recent years, covering 80% of the city today, according to UN estimates. Seeing their city shrinking, many Haitians in this region and beyond have organized among themselves in a vigilante movement known as bwa kale.
The anti-gang movement has seen communities form neighborhood defense committees with shared fortifications, surveillance systems, checkpoints and even patrols.
Their solidarity is effective; in 2023, for example, several areas of the city’s hilly residential areas joined forces with local police to push back the Ti Makak gang, ultimately expelling it from the area entirely, according local sources and a February 2024 report by the Swiss-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
But the line between defense and mob justice is easily crossed. Vigilante groups have also lynched hundreds of people suspected of gang membership or “common crimes,” according to an October 2023 United Nations report.
Speaking to CNN in a car-filled lot next to a church, whose open doors revealed a wedding in progress, one militia member told CNN that his group had repelled repeated gang attempts to seize Canapé Vert.
“This is the way the gangs operate: they take over areas with big businesses and force them to pay them while they remain in control,” he said, noting that the area contains several high-profile businesses, including two national cellular companies and a major hotel. He spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity out of concerns for his safety.
“We constantly receive threats; they say they will come and attack us, destroy the neighborhood. So we block the streets and the police to do the searches; no civilians are involved in searching cars,” he added. The militia is armed only with “machetes and our bare hands,” he said.
People apprehended by these vigilante groups are often accused of being spies for the gangs, according to a local security source.
“The bandits send the spy on a motorcycle to come see if there’s a barricade in the road, and how many people are manning it. But if someone comes looking suspicious, they’ll question him, find out who he is, check his telephone. If he has messages with bandits, they have to take him,” the source said. “Then they burn them.”
“It’s not a war,” he emphasizes. “The neighborhood is trying to protect itself.” But he recognizes that there’s no judicial process for those.
Local police meanwhile tell CNN that they know the militia well and even rely on them, with one commander crediting the group with saving the Canapé Vert police station from a particularly intense gang attack last spring. Over a dozen suspected gang members in that instance were killed and burned outside the police station, according to the commander, who requested anonymity for his security.
Refugees in their own city
Just five minutes away by car, another community is trying desperately to hold together in even more trying conditions: a displacement camp – one of dozens of sites across the city where tens of thousands of city residents congregate, after being forced from their homes by violence and arson.
Marie Maurice, 56, had seen the gang take territory closer and closer; on February 29, when the warning came of an imminent gang attack, she didn’t waste any time. She left all her belongings behind and fled with the others nearly an hour on foot to the public Argentine Bellegarde school for shelter, she said.
Nearly three weeks weeks later, children here fly kites made of discarded foil and plastic, drive homemade toy cars cut from empty soda cans, with bottle caps for wheels and stones for passengers.
The adults also make a show of normalcy, but with a sense of futility; they’ve elected a leader to liaise with local police and to advocate for aid organizations to bring food and water, for example, but little aid has actually come due to roadblocks across the city.
Maurice tries to keep her family’s little corner of the crowded space clean, washing the floor with water that she has to walk 20 minutes to purchase. But no one in her family has enough to eat or even space to cook, living off a shared bite or piece of street food each day. Even a mint might count as a meal, she told CNN.
On the day we met her, she hadn’t eaten at all.
Beyond the difficulty of daily survival, several residents of the camp say they know they’ve worn out their welcome and that relations are worsening with their neighbors. There have been clashes with locals anxious for them to move on, fearing that the influx of outsiders could attract gang attention.
Anticipating the effects of dwindling resources and worsening violence, the International Organization for Migration has repeatedly warned of a sharpening “climate of mistrust” in Haiti that would fray traditional social safety nets, leaving people with nowhere to go.
“High levels of insecurity are creating a climate of mistrust between certain host communities and displaced populations, thus deteriorating social cohesion,” the organization said in an August 2023 report, which also noted that more and more displaced Haitians are ending up in such camps rather than relying on friends and family.
The little school where Maurice lives is already far past capacity. But every day, more people join them from other parts of the city, further straining what few resources the site provides – the building’s septic tank is full and the toilets backed up, one resident showed CNN. Its water cistern is nearly dry.
Today, 1,575 people are now living packed into the grid of open-air classrooms – just a handful compared to the over 360,000 who have been displaced across the country according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Divided by fear
Port-au-Prince has been terrorized for years by frequent kidnappings, torture, and rape by the gangs. But today, as Haiti’s elite haggles over the composition of a presidential transitional council – and the international community remains unwilling to intervene – talk of a political solution sounds more than ever like wishful thinking as long as gunshots ring out in the evenings, puncturing the city’s hush.
The proliferation of police, gang and civilian checkpoints meanwhile is fracturing Haiti’s capital into wary and anxious fiefdoms. Increasingly, the only thing that everyone shares is trauma.
Marie-Suze Saint Charles, 47, says her own sons are too terrified of the constant violence to even visit her in the hospital, where she is recovering from a shooting on March 1 that shattered her leg, after being attacked on her way back from work.
One son, 17, was also shot and is in a different hospital. Her other sons – eight and thirteen years old – refuse to leave the house. She is not sure who, if anyone, is feeding them.
“They are scared of the street,” she told CNN from her hospital bed. “They don’t even want to come see me. They are too scared to go outside.”
Nearly 1,000 Americans in Haiti plea for help, State Dept. says, as gangs unleash new attacks
Greg Norman
Mon, March 18, 2024
The State Department revealed Monday that nearly 1,000 Americans have filled out a "crisis intake form" seeking assistance in Haiti – a country it is now calling "one of the most dire humanitarian situations in the world."
State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel made the remark hours after dozens of Americans landed in Miami on a U.S. government-chartered evacuation flight from Haiti, where reports are emerging of gangs killing at least 12 people early this morning in a suburb of Port-au-Prince following the looting of homes in two upscale neighborhoods in the Caribbean country’s capital.
"It is not hyperbole to say that this is one of the most dire humanitarian situations in the world," Patel said. "Gang violence continues to make the security situation in Haiti untenable, and it is a region that demands our attention."
"This is a fluid situation and the number of individuals who have reached out to us through the crisis intake form is approaching a thousand," he added, referring to the form on the State Department’s website.
STATE DEPARTMENT CONFIRMS MORE THAN 30 AMERICANS EVACUATED FROM HAITI ON US-GOVERNMENT CHARTERED FLIGHT
Police officers take part in an operation on the surroundings of the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 14.
"And we're continuing to monitor the situation closely and evaluate the demand of U.S. citizens, evaluate the overall security situation, evaluate what is feasible when it comes to commercial transportation options, what is feasible for other transportation solutions," Patel also said, emphasizing that "we have no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens.
The State Department previously has said it is aware of several hundred U.S. citizens being stuck in Haiti.
Patel said people fill out the form requesting assistance for "a variety of reasons."
"Many, we assume, are in a circumstance where they are ready to fully depart the country.... Others may be more interested in just getting status updates, getting information on what avenues might be available to them," he continued. "It is hard to paint this entire population with a single stroke."
People react after a dozen people were killed in the street by gang members, in Pétionville, Haiti, on Monday, March 18.
In Port-au-Prince this morning, gunmen looted homes in the communities of Laboule and Thomassin before sunrise, forcing residents to flee as some called radio stations pleading for police, according to the Associated Press.
The news agency reported that one of their photographers saw the bodies of at least 12 men strewn on the streets of nearby Pétionville, which later were collected by an ambulance.
"Abuse! This is abuse!" one Haitian man reportedly cried out as he raised his arms and stood near one of the victims. "People of Haiti! Wake up!"
"We woke up this morning to find bodies in the street in our community of Pétionville," Douce Titi, who works at the mayor's office, also told the AP.
Orlando, Florida, resident Abson Louis, 46, pauses in search of friends after arriving on the first evacuation flight out of Cap-Haitien, Haiti, that landed at Miami International Airport on Sunday, March 17, 2024.
The most recent attacks have raised concerns that gang violence will not cease despite Prime Minister Ariel Henry announcing nearly a week ago that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created, a move that gangs had been demanding.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Evacuation flights to US begin as Haiti deteriorates
Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News, Washington
Mon, March 18, 2024
Dozens of US citizens fled the chaos and violence of Haiti this weekend, arriving on a government-chartered plane in Miami on Sunday.
The flight came a week after Washington airlifted non-essential staff from the capital, Port-au-Prince, parts of which have been overrun by gangs.
As gunfire and threats of starvation rock Haiti, the State Department is working to help other Americans leave,
Aid groups have warned that millions of Haitians face acute food shortages.
The first flight, which took off from the city of Cap Haitien on the island's north coast, touched down in Miami with 47 people aboard, according to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.
Earlier this month, the US had warned its citizens to leave Haiti "as soon as possible" as the violence escalated.
Passenger, Abson Louis, told CBS that he was in Haiti on business when the airport closed.
"We felt like we had no no one fighting on our behalf, but finally got an email saying we got a flight," he said. "I'm feeling great."
Running the gauntlet to flee Haiti gang territory
Haiti violence: 'We're living with death on a daily basis'
Boston resident Avlot Quessa had "mixed emotions" getting off the plane, telling CBS: "It's good to be back here, but I also need to think about the people back home".
Passengers were asked to sign promissory notes that they would pay for the flight at a later date. It is unclear when the next flight will take place.
While the airport in Cap-Haitien has opened periodically, the State Department has warned US citizens that the 120 mile (193km) trip from Port-au-Prince is "dangerous" and that it cannot provide transportation.
The US is examining other options for departures from the capital, according to CBS, and US citizens still in the country who wish to be evacuated have been urged to contact the State Department.
In Florida, home to a large Haitian community, Haitians told local media they wished the US would do more to help and they wanted US lawmakers to take action.
"The more that we can put light on this the sooner that we can see stability come back to the region," Jean Perpillant Jr, the president of the Orlando-based Greater Haitian American Chamber of Commerce told local news outlet WESH.
In an interview with CBS, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell compared the situation in Haiti to the film Mad Max, which depicts a chaotic post-apocalyptic future.
"Many, many people there are suffering from serious hunger and malnutrition and we're not able to get enough aid to them," she said. "Somehow, we need to get more control over that situation so that we can get the humanitarian response in."
PIERRE-RICHARD LUXAMA and ODELYN JOSEPH
Mon, March 18, 2024
Haiti Violence
The relative, below, of a person found dead in the street reacts after an overnight shooting in the Petion Ville neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, March 18, 2024.
(AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Gangs attacked two upscale neighborhoods in Haiti’s capital early Monday in a rampage that left at least a dozen people dead in surrounding areas.
Gunmen looted homes in the communities of Laboule and Thomassin before sunrise, forcing residents to flee as some called radio stations pleading for police. The neighborhoods had remained largely peaceful despite a surge in violent gang attacks across Port-au-Prince that began on Feb. 29.
An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of at least 12 men strewn on the streets of Pétionville, located just below the mountainous communities of Laboule and Thomassin.
Crowds began gathering around the victims. One was lying face up on the street surrounded by a scattered deck of cards and another found face down inside a pick-up truck known as a “tap-tap” that operates as a taxi. A woman at one of the scenes collapsed and had to be held by others after learning that a relative of hers was killed.
“Abuse! This is abuse!” cried out one Haitian man who did not want to be identified as he raised his arms and stood near one of the victims. “People of Haiti! Wake up!” An ambulance arrived shortly afterward and made its way through Pétionville, collecting the victims.
“We woke up this morning to find bodies in the street in our community of Pétionville,” said Douce Titi, who works at the mayor's office. “Ours is not that kind of community. We will start working to remove those bodies before the children start walking by to go to school and the vendors start to arrive.”
It was too late for some, though. A relative of one of the victims hugged a young boy close to his chest, with his head turned away from the scene.
The most recent attacks raised concerns that gang violence would not cease despite Prime Minister Ariel Henry announcing nearly a week ago that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created, a move that gangs had been demanding.
Gangs have long opposed Henry, saying he was never elected by the people as they blame him for deepening poverty, but critics of gangs accuse them of trying to seize power for themselves or for unidentified Haitian politicians.
Also on Monday, Haiti’s power company announced that four substations in the capital and elsewhere “were destroyed and rendered completely dysfunctional.” As a result, swaths of Port-au-Prince were without power, including the Cite Soleil slum, the Croix-des-Bouquets community and a hospital.
The company said criminals also seized important documents, cables, inverters, batteries and other items.
As gang violence continues unabated, Caribbean leaders have been helping with the creation of a transitional council. It was originally supposed to have seven members with voting powers. But one political party in Haiti rejected the seat they were offered, and another is still squabbling over who should be nominated.
Meanwhile, the deployment of a U.N.-backed Kenyan police force to fight gangs in Haiti has been delayed, with the East African country saying it would wait until the transitional council is established.
In a bid to curb the relentless violence, Haiti's government announced Sunday that it was extending a nighttime curfew through March 20.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Gangs attacked two upscale neighborhoods in Haiti’s capital early Monday in a rampage that left at least a dozen people dead in surrounding areas.
Gunmen looted homes in the communities of Laboule and Thomassin before sunrise, forcing residents to flee as some called radio stations pleading for police. The neighborhoods had remained largely peaceful despite a surge in violent gang attacks across Port-au-Prince that began on Feb. 29.
An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of at least 12 men strewn on the streets of Pétionville, located just below the mountainous communities of Laboule and Thomassin.
Crowds began gathering around the victims. One was lying face up on the street surrounded by a scattered deck of cards and another found face down inside a pick-up truck known as a “tap-tap” that operates as a taxi. A woman at one of the scenes collapsed and had to be held by others after learning that a relative of hers was killed.
“Abuse! This is abuse!” cried out one Haitian man who did not want to be identified as he raised his arms and stood near one of the victims. “People of Haiti! Wake up!” An ambulance arrived shortly afterward and made its way through Pétionville, collecting the victims.
“We woke up this morning to find bodies in the street in our community of Pétionville,” said Douce Titi, who works at the mayor's office. “Ours is not that kind of community. We will start working to remove those bodies before the children start walking by to go to school and the vendors start to arrive.”
It was too late for some, though. A relative of one of the victims hugged a young boy close to his chest, with his head turned away from the scene.
The most recent attacks raised concerns that gang violence would not cease despite Prime Minister Ariel Henry announcing nearly a week ago that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created, a move that gangs had been demanding.
Gangs have long opposed Henry, saying he was never elected by the people as they blame him for deepening poverty, but critics of gangs accuse them of trying to seize power for themselves or for unidentified Haitian politicians.
Also on Monday, Haiti’s power company announced that four substations in the capital and elsewhere “were destroyed and rendered completely dysfunctional.” As a result, swaths of Port-au-Prince were without power, including the Cite Soleil slum, the Croix-des-Bouquets community and a hospital.
The company said criminals also seized important documents, cables, inverters, batteries and other items.
As gang violence continues unabated, Caribbean leaders have been helping with the creation of a transitional council. It was originally supposed to have seven members with voting powers. But one political party in Haiti rejected the seat they were offered, and another is still squabbling over who should be nominated.
Meanwhile, the deployment of a U.N.-backed Kenyan police force to fight gangs in Haiti has been delayed, with the East African country saying it would wait until the transitional council is established.
In a bid to curb the relentless violence, Haiti's government announced Sunday that it was extending a nighttime curfew through March 20.
Bodies found in Haitian suburb as gang violence rages for third week
AFP
Mon, March 18, 2024
Paramedics carry the body of a person killed by gang members in Petionville, Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Clarens SIFFROY)
Fourteen bodies were found in an affluent suburb of Haiti's capital Monday, as international efforts accelerated to fill a political vacuum created by weeks of gang violence that has forced the impending departure of the prime minister.
Local residents told AFP they did not know the circumstances of the deaths but said that the Laboule and Thomassin neighborhoods, in the suburb of Petion-Ville, had been under attack by what they said were armed criminals since dawn.
Witnesses said gang members attacked a bank, a gas station and homes in the area. Gunfire continued to ring out in Petion-Ville in the afternoon.
"They came wearing balaclavas in their cars, on motorcycles, with their own ambulance, then they massacred the population of Petion-Ville," said local resident Vincent Jean Robert.
"I was on my motorcycle when they arrived and started shooting," a motorcycle taxi driver named Cadet told AFP, while adding, "We don't know if it's bandits or the police who were behind this."
He suspected that the victims were those who had been out late at night, "searching for something to eat for their children."
Amid the violence Monday morning, a judge narrowly escaped an attack on his home, a relative told AFP.
Haiti has been engulfed for three weeks in a gang uprising by well-armed groups saying they want to topple Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Last week Henry agreed to step aside to allow the formation of an interim government, following pressure from neighboring Caribbean countries, including the CARICOM regional body, and the United States.
The situation remains dire even as Washington voiced hope Monday that a transitional body to lead the country, set up at a crisis meeting a week ago, could be ready "as soon as today" -- though as of that evening nothing had been announced.
"I understand that Haitian stakeholders are very close to finalizing membership and remain in active discussions with CARICOM leaders as it relates to the makeup of the Transitional Presidential Council," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters in Washington.
"The announcement of this council, we believe, will help pave the way for free and fair elections and the deployment of the Multinational Security Support Mission," he said, referring to a UN-backed, Kenyan-led force that aims to bring stability to Haiti.
- 'Famine and malnutrition' -
The council, which will include seven voting and two observer members representing a broad spectrum in Haiti and its diaspora, will be in charge of naming an interim government before elections, which have not been held since 2016.
Ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Haiti Monday, deputy US ambassador Robert Wood had told journalists that a decision on the make-up of the transitional council was "close."
After the closed-door session, Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith noted that talks "are progressing well," though she added "it's a difficult process."
The Security Council meeting came as the United Nations announced that the first helicopter flights had begun in an air bridge set up between Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic to deliver aid.
UNICEF, the United Nations' children's agency, offered a bleak assessment of the situation in the country over the weekend, saying Sunday it was "almost like a scene out of 'Mad Max,'" and warning people were suffering "famine and malnutrition" with aid groups unable to gain access.
That same day, a curfew was extended until Wednesday in the Ouest department, which includes Port-au-Prince. A state of emergency is set to end April 3.
Several countries including the US and European Union member states have evacuated diplomatic personnel from Haiti due to the crisis.
Meanwhile, efforts are continuing to organize Nairobi's security mission to back up Haiti's overwhelmed police force.
Ten killed in Port-au-Prince suburb as tensions rise in Haiti
Reuters
Updated Mon, March 18, 2024
People react at a crime scene, in Port-au-Prince
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -At least ten people were killed in a wealthy suburb of Haiti's capital on Monday, there were reports of looting, and thefts of electricity equipment cut the power supply as lawlessness spread to affluent areas and gangs tightened their grip on the city.
A Reuters witness saw at least ten dead bodies, at least some of which had bulletholes, on Monday morning in the streets of upscale Petion-Ville on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, which were later removed by ambulance. Authorities have not commented on the events surrounding the deaths.
Haitians also reported gunfire and looting on Monday morning in the nearby area of Laboule. Later, the streets around Petion-Ville were practically deserted.
Meanwhile, the EDH electricity service said several stations had been attacked and that cables, batteries and documents were stolen.
Armed gangs who have been increasing their power in recent years took advantage of the absence earlier this month of Prime Minister Ariel Henry to escalate violence, attacking infrastructure including police stations and government offices.
Under international pressure and stranded in Puerto Rico, the unelected Henry announced his resignation pending the appointment of a council and temporary replacement a week ago, but the transition council has yet to be appointed amid disagreements by some of the groups putting forward representatives.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said the council's membership could be finalized "very soon," and that an update could come later on Monday.
Local media reported Haiti's Catholic Church would not participate in the council, as had been previously expected, in order to maintain a "moral distance," although it was quoted as saying that it hoped all sectors would seek a resolution to the crisis.
The church's episcopal council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Leaders of the armed groups who have long sought to oust Henry have warned of a "battle" for Haiti and threatened politicians who join the transition council. Residents are facing worsening shortages of food and medical care as shipping firms have changed routes.
Over the weekend, U.N. children's agency UNICEF said one of its containers of "essential items" for maternal, neo-natal and childcare was stolen from Haiti's main port.
The international presence in Haiti has declined as the insecurity has risen.
The United Nations and U.S. and Canadian embassies have withdrawn staff this month.
Over the weekend, the Dominican Republic - which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti - evacuated dozens of its citizens by helicopter, while the Philippines' PNA state news agency said it would repatriate at least 63 of 115 nationals and was looking for options such as chartering a flight. Commercial flights have been suspended.
Around 17,000 people left the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area last week, according to U.N. estimates. Many of those had already been displaced.
Neighboring countries have been bolstering their borders. Plans for an international intervention, which Haiti's government requested in 2022 and was ratified by the U.N. nearly six months ago, remain on hold.
(Reporting by Ralph Tedy Erol and Harold Isaac in Port-au-Prince and Sarah Morland in Mexico City; Writing by Natalia Siniawski; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Rosalba O'Brien)
Vigilantes battle gangs in Port-au-Prince as Haiti’s elites vie for power
Caitlin Stephen Hu, David Culver and Evelio Contreras, CNN
Mon, March 18, 2024 at 7:18 PM MDT·8 min read
The wide road that passes in front of Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport has a post-apocalyptic stillness these days. Where cars and crowds of people once massed, only tendrils of smoke rise from smoldering piles of trash, sending a bitter taste into the air.
An armored police vehicle hulks nearby; the few police officers on watch cover their faces with balaclavas. This street looks nearly abandoned, as if in the wake of a disaster – an experience that people in Port-au-Prince know better than most. But leaving the city isn’t an option this time; the airport, under siege by gangs, has been forced to close.
Since the start of the month, criminal groups have been attacking with unprecedented coordination the last remnants of the Haitian state – the airport, police stations, government buildings, the National Penitentiary. The culmination of years of growing gang control and popular unrest, their joint assault forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign last week, a stunning capitulation that has nevertheless proven futile in restoring calm.
Port-au-Prince’s gangs are still choking off the supply of food, fuel and water across the city. Perhaps the last functional part of the state, Haiti’s National Police, continue to fight, battling to reclaim ground block by block across the city. But the very life of the city they are fighting for seems to be waning, as intensive urban warfare grinds down on basic human ties.
The social fabric is fraying as businesses and schools stay shuttered. Many residents self-isolate, afraid to leave their homes. Some have turned to vigilantism. Fear, mistrust, and anger reign. Death is on everyone’s mind.
Vigilante justice, approved by the police
In the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Canapé Vert on Monday, crowds seized a man they accused of belonging to a nearby gang – forcing him to walk down the road toward a cemetery before killing him and setting his body on fire in the street, sources in the community told CNN.
Videos seen by CNN showed remains smoking on the pavement in front of a shuttered supermarket, adding to a stretch of thick black soot. At this corner, the indelible mark of extrajudicial executions is all that remains of hundreds of suspected criminals killed by residents, their bodies disposed of by flame according to a local security source.
Gangs have long haunted the residents of Port-au-Prince, but their reach has dramatically expanded over recent years, covering 80% of the city today, according to UN estimates. Seeing their city shrinking, many Haitians in this region and beyond have organized among themselves in a vigilante movement known as bwa kale.
The anti-gang movement has seen communities form neighborhood defense committees with shared fortifications, surveillance systems, checkpoints and even patrols.
Their solidarity is effective; in 2023, for example, several areas of the city’s hilly residential areas joined forces with local police to push back the Ti Makak gang, ultimately expelling it from the area entirely, according local sources and a February 2024 report by the Swiss-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
But the line between defense and mob justice is easily crossed. Vigilante groups have also lynched hundreds of people suspected of gang membership or “common crimes,” according to an October 2023 United Nations report.
Speaking to CNN in a car-filled lot next to a church, whose open doors revealed a wedding in progress, one militia member told CNN that his group had repelled repeated gang attempts to seize Canapé Vert.
“This is the way the gangs operate: they take over areas with big businesses and force them to pay them while they remain in control,” he said, noting that the area contains several high-profile businesses, including two national cellular companies and a major hotel. He spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity out of concerns for his safety.
“We constantly receive threats; they say they will come and attack us, destroy the neighborhood. So we block the streets and the police to do the searches; no civilians are involved in searching cars,” he added. The militia is armed only with “machetes and our bare hands,” he said.
People apprehended by these vigilante groups are often accused of being spies for the gangs, according to a local security source.
“The bandits send the spy on a motorcycle to come see if there’s a barricade in the road, and how many people are manning it. But if someone comes looking suspicious, they’ll question him, find out who he is, check his telephone. If he has messages with bandits, they have to take him,” the source said. “Then they burn them.”
“It’s not a war,” he emphasizes. “The neighborhood is trying to protect itself.” But he recognizes that there’s no judicial process for those.
Local police meanwhile tell CNN that they know the militia well and even rely on them, with one commander crediting the group with saving the Canapé Vert police station from a particularly intense gang attack last spring. Over a dozen suspected gang members in that instance were killed and burned outside the police station, according to the commander, who requested anonymity for his security.
Refugees in their own city
Just five minutes away by car, another community is trying desperately to hold together in even more trying conditions: a displacement camp – one of dozens of sites across the city where tens of thousands of city residents congregate, after being forced from their homes by violence and arson.
Marie Maurice, 56, had seen the gang take territory closer and closer; on February 29, when the warning came of an imminent gang attack, she didn’t waste any time. She left all her belongings behind and fled with the others nearly an hour on foot to the public Argentine Bellegarde school for shelter, she said.
Nearly three weeks weeks later, children here fly kites made of discarded foil and plastic, drive homemade toy cars cut from empty soda cans, with bottle caps for wheels and stones for passengers.
The adults also make a show of normalcy, but with a sense of futility; they’ve elected a leader to liaise with local police and to advocate for aid organizations to bring food and water, for example, but little aid has actually come due to roadblocks across the city.
Maurice tries to keep her family’s little corner of the crowded space clean, washing the floor with water that she has to walk 20 minutes to purchase. But no one in her family has enough to eat or even space to cook, living off a shared bite or piece of street food each day. Even a mint might count as a meal, she told CNN.
On the day we met her, she hadn’t eaten at all.
Beyond the difficulty of daily survival, several residents of the camp say they know they’ve worn out their welcome and that relations are worsening with their neighbors. There have been clashes with locals anxious for them to move on, fearing that the influx of outsiders could attract gang attention.
Anticipating the effects of dwindling resources and worsening violence, the International Organization for Migration has repeatedly warned of a sharpening “climate of mistrust” in Haiti that would fray traditional social safety nets, leaving people with nowhere to go.
“High levels of insecurity are creating a climate of mistrust between certain host communities and displaced populations, thus deteriorating social cohesion,” the organization said in an August 2023 report, which also noted that more and more displaced Haitians are ending up in such camps rather than relying on friends and family.
The little school where Maurice lives is already far past capacity. But every day, more people join them from other parts of the city, further straining what few resources the site provides – the building’s septic tank is full and the toilets backed up, one resident showed CNN. Its water cistern is nearly dry.
Today, 1,575 people are now living packed into the grid of open-air classrooms – just a handful compared to the over 360,000 who have been displaced across the country according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Divided by fear
Port-au-Prince has been terrorized for years by frequent kidnappings, torture, and rape by the gangs. But today, as Haiti’s elite haggles over the composition of a presidential transitional council – and the international community remains unwilling to intervene – talk of a political solution sounds more than ever like wishful thinking as long as gunshots ring out in the evenings, puncturing the city’s hush.
The proliferation of police, gang and civilian checkpoints meanwhile is fracturing Haiti’s capital into wary and anxious fiefdoms. Increasingly, the only thing that everyone shares is trauma.
Marie-Suze Saint Charles, 47, says her own sons are too terrified of the constant violence to even visit her in the hospital, where she is recovering from a shooting on March 1 that shattered her leg, after being attacked on her way back from work.
One son, 17, was also shot and is in a different hospital. Her other sons – eight and thirteen years old – refuse to leave the house. She is not sure who, if anyone, is feeding them.
“They are scared of the street,” she told CNN from her hospital bed. “They don’t even want to come see me. They are too scared to go outside.”
Nearly 1,000 Americans in Haiti plea for help, State Dept. says, as gangs unleash new attacks
Greg Norman
Mon, March 18, 2024
The State Department revealed Monday that nearly 1,000 Americans have filled out a "crisis intake form" seeking assistance in Haiti – a country it is now calling "one of the most dire humanitarian situations in the world."
State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel made the remark hours after dozens of Americans landed in Miami on a U.S. government-chartered evacuation flight from Haiti, where reports are emerging of gangs killing at least 12 people early this morning in a suburb of Port-au-Prince following the looting of homes in two upscale neighborhoods in the Caribbean country’s capital.
"It is not hyperbole to say that this is one of the most dire humanitarian situations in the world," Patel said. "Gang violence continues to make the security situation in Haiti untenable, and it is a region that demands our attention."
"This is a fluid situation and the number of individuals who have reached out to us through the crisis intake form is approaching a thousand," he added, referring to the form on the State Department’s website.
STATE DEPARTMENT CONFIRMS MORE THAN 30 AMERICANS EVACUATED FROM HAITI ON US-GOVERNMENT CHARTERED FLIGHT
Police officers take part in an operation on the surroundings of the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 14.
"And we're continuing to monitor the situation closely and evaluate the demand of U.S. citizens, evaluate the overall security situation, evaluate what is feasible when it comes to commercial transportation options, what is feasible for other transportation solutions," Patel also said, emphasizing that "we have no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens.
The State Department previously has said it is aware of several hundred U.S. citizens being stuck in Haiti.
Patel said people fill out the form requesting assistance for "a variety of reasons."
"Many, we assume, are in a circumstance where they are ready to fully depart the country.... Others may be more interested in just getting status updates, getting information on what avenues might be available to them," he continued. "It is hard to paint this entire population with a single stroke."
People react after a dozen people were killed in the street by gang members, in Pétionville, Haiti, on Monday, March 18.
In Port-au-Prince this morning, gunmen looted homes in the communities of Laboule and Thomassin before sunrise, forcing residents to flee as some called radio stations pleading for police, according to the Associated Press.
The news agency reported that one of their photographers saw the bodies of at least 12 men strewn on the streets of nearby Pétionville, which later were collected by an ambulance.
"Abuse! This is abuse!" one Haitian man reportedly cried out as he raised his arms and stood near one of the victims. "People of Haiti! Wake up!"
"We woke up this morning to find bodies in the street in our community of Pétionville," Douce Titi, who works at the mayor's office, also told the AP.
Orlando, Florida, resident Abson Louis, 46, pauses in search of friends after arriving on the first evacuation flight out of Cap-Haitien, Haiti, that landed at Miami International Airport on Sunday, March 17, 2024.
The most recent attacks have raised concerns that gang violence will not cease despite Prime Minister Ariel Henry announcing nearly a week ago that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created, a move that gangs had been demanding.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Evacuation flights to US begin as Haiti deteriorates
Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News, Washington
Mon, March 18, 2024
Dozens of US citizens fled the chaos and violence of Haiti this weekend, arriving on a government-chartered plane in Miami on Sunday.
The flight came a week after Washington airlifted non-essential staff from the capital, Port-au-Prince, parts of which have been overrun by gangs.
As gunfire and threats of starvation rock Haiti, the State Department is working to help other Americans leave,
Aid groups have warned that millions of Haitians face acute food shortages.
The first flight, which took off from the city of Cap Haitien on the island's north coast, touched down in Miami with 47 people aboard, according to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.
Earlier this month, the US had warned its citizens to leave Haiti "as soon as possible" as the violence escalated.
Passenger, Abson Louis, told CBS that he was in Haiti on business when the airport closed.
"We felt like we had no no one fighting on our behalf, but finally got an email saying we got a flight," he said. "I'm feeling great."
Running the gauntlet to flee Haiti gang territory
Haiti violence: 'We're living with death on a daily basis'
Boston resident Avlot Quessa had "mixed emotions" getting off the plane, telling CBS: "It's good to be back here, but I also need to think about the people back home".
Passengers were asked to sign promissory notes that they would pay for the flight at a later date. It is unclear when the next flight will take place.
While the airport in Cap-Haitien has opened periodically, the State Department has warned US citizens that the 120 mile (193km) trip from Port-au-Prince is "dangerous" and that it cannot provide transportation.
The US is examining other options for departures from the capital, according to CBS, and US citizens still in the country who wish to be evacuated have been urged to contact the State Department.
In Florida, home to a large Haitian community, Haitians told local media they wished the US would do more to help and they wanted US lawmakers to take action.
"The more that we can put light on this the sooner that we can see stability come back to the region," Jean Perpillant Jr, the president of the Orlando-based Greater Haitian American Chamber of Commerce told local news outlet WESH.
In an interview with CBS, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell compared the situation in Haiti to the film Mad Max, which depicts a chaotic post-apocalyptic future.
"Many, many people there are suffering from serious hunger and malnutrition and we're not able to get enough aid to them," she said. "Somehow, we need to get more control over that situation so that we can get the humanitarian response in."
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