Haiti imposes curfew after thousands of inmates escape from prison – video report Haiti
The attack on two prisons comes amid outbreaks of violence as Kenya's prime minister tries to rescue UN-backed security forces
Haiti has declared a three-day state of emergency and nighttime curfew after armed gangs stormed the country's two largest prisons, allowing more than 3,000 dangerous criminals, including murderers and kidnappers, to escape onto the streets of the poor and violently shattered Caribbean state.
Finance Minister Patrick Boisvert – who is in command while embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry is abroad trying to salvage support for a United Nations-backed security force to stabilize Haiti – said police would use “all legal means at their disposal.” “Use to prevent this from recapturing the prisoners and enforcing the curfew.
Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who now heads a gang organization, has claimed responsibility for the increase in attacks. He said the goal was to capture the police chief and Haitian government ministers and prevent Henry's return.
The emergency order was issued after a deadly weekend that marked a new low in Haiti's spiraling violence, prompting the United States to advise its citizens to leave the country “as soon as possible” and prompting Canada to withdraw its embassy to close temporarily.
At least nine people have been killed since Thursday, including four police officers. The targets included police stations, the country's international airport and the national football stadium, where an employee was held hostage for hours.
The United Nations estimates that about 15,000 people were forced to flee the violence between Thursday and Saturday, including those already housed in makeshift camps for displaced people set up in schools, hospitals and squares around the capital Port-au-Prince became.
But even in a country accustomed to the constant threat of violence, Saturday's attack on the state prison in Port-au-Prince came as a major shock.
Almost all of the estimated 4,000 inmates escaped, leaving the normally overcrowded prison eerily empty Sunday, with no guards in sight and plastic sandals, clothing and furniture strewn across the concrete patio. Three bodies with gunshot wounds lay at the prison entrance.
In another neighborhood, the bloodied bodies of two men lay facedown with their hands tied behind their backs as residents walked past roadblocks set up with burning tires.
Haiti's most powerful crime boss calls for an uprising to overthrow the prime minister
It was unclear how many prisoners were on the run, but Arnel Remy, a human rights lawyer whose nonprofit works at the state prison, said on X that fewer than 100 of the nearly 4,000 inmates remained behind bars.
“I’m the only one left in my cell,” an unidentified inmate told Portal.
The Haitian state prison after the attack by armed gangs in Port-au-Prince on March 3, 2024. Photo: Siffroy Clarens/EPA
Sources close to the institution said it was likely that an “overwhelming” majority of inmates had escaped. According to human rights group RNDDH, the prison, which is designed to house 700 prisoners, held 3,687 prisoners as of February last year.
The BBC quoted a local journalist as saying the vast majority of the approximately 4,000 men held there had escaped.
Among those who chose to stay were 18 former Colombian soldiers accused of working as mercenaries in the assassination of then-Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. On Saturday evening, several Colombians shared a video pleading for their lives.
“Please, please help us,” one of the men, Francisco Uribe, said in the message widely shared on social media. “They massacre people indiscriminately in the cells.”
A second prison in Port-au-Prince with around 1,400 inmates was also overrun.
The violence on Saturday evening appeared to be widespread, with several neighborhoods reporting shots fired.
A protest against Ariel Henry's government and insecurity in Port-au-Prince on March 1, 2024. Photo: Ralph Tedy Erol/Portal
Internet connections were also out for many residents, as Haiti's main cell phone network said a fiber optic cable connection had been cut during the rampage. Field teams managed to fully restore connectivity on Sunday afternoon.
In less than two weeks, several state institutions were attacked by the gangs, who increasingly coordinated their actions and chose once-unthinkable targets such as the central bank.
Henry took over as prime minister after Moise's assassination and has repeatedly postponed plans to hold parliamentary and presidential elections that have not taken place in nearly a decade.
The prime minister, a neurosurgeon, signed reciprocal agreements with Kenyan President William Ruto last week to salvage a plan to send Kenyan police to Haiti.
In January, Kenya's Supreme Court ruled that the operation was unconstitutional, partly because the original agreement did not contain any reciprocal agreements between the two countries. Henry has shrugged off calls for his resignation and made no comment when asked if he thought it was safe to come home.
According to the United Nations, the Haitian National Police has around 9,000 officers ensuring the security of more than 11 million people. They are regularly overwhelmed and outgunned by gangs that are estimated to control up to 80% of the capital.
After gangs opened fire at Haiti's international airport last week, the U.S. Embassy said it was halting all official travel to the country. On Sunday evening it called on all US citizens to leave as quickly as possible.
The Biden administration – which has offered money and logistical support to Haiti but has steadfastly refused to contribute troops to a multinational force – said it is watching the rapidly deteriorating security situation with grave concern.
Stéphane Dujarric, a U.N. spokesman, said the recent rise in violence underscored the need for member states to work quickly to support and deploy multinational security forces.
“We've been talking for months about how civilians in Haiti and in Port-au-Prince are essentially falling into the trap of gang violence,” he told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. “Schools are closed, hospitals are not functioning, people are suffering every day.”
Earlier this year, the United Nations said more than 300,000 people had fled their homes due to the worsening gang conflict that claimed nearly 5,000 lives last year.
The Associated Press and Portal contributed to this report
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