- By Vanessa Buschschlüter
- BBC News
1 hour ago
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Soldiers were deployed to guard the international airport
Soldiers are deployed to protect the airport in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince from an attack by armed gangs.
Witnesses said shots were fired near Toussaint Louverture airport as security forces clashed with gunmen.
The gangs' goal is to prevent Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is presumably abroad, from returning to Haiti.
Violence increased in his absence and gangs called for his resignation.
Mr. Henry left Haiti last week to attend a regional summit in Guyana. From there he traveled to Kenya to sign a contract to deploy a multinational police force to Haiti.
His current whereabouts are not known, but a US State Department spokesman said: “We expect the prime minister to return to the country.” [Haiti]”.
While he was in Kenya, a gang coalition led by former police officer Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier went on the offensive, attacking police stations and storming two of Haiti's largest prisons.
About a dozen people were killed in the attack on the prisons. Thousands of prisoners escaped and remain at large.
A minister representing Mr Henry declared a 72-hour state of emergency.
Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste reports that both international and domestic commercial flights have been suspended due to the violence in recent days. Le Nouvelliste added that no private planes landed or took off from the airport either.
An attempt by armed men to enter the airport premises through a hole in the wall was reportedly repelled by security forces.
Control of the airport is key to the gangs' goal of preventing Prime Minister Henry from returning to the country.
The gang leader known as Barbecue has been calling for his ouster since the prime minister was sworn in as President Jovenel Moïse's successor in July 2021.
Already rampant gang violence was further fueled by the assassination of President Moïse by Colombian mercenaries, creating a power vacuum in the country.
Armed gangs have gained control of an estimated 80% of the capital in recent years using weapons smuggled from the United States.
Prime Minister Henry has asked the international community to send troops to help fight the gangs. But a Kenyan plan to deploy 1,000 police officers to curb the violence collapsed after Kenya's Supreme Court blocked it.
Mr Henry was in Nairobi for talks with Kenyan President William Ruto to try to salvage the operation when the latest violence broke out.
In a video posted on social media last week, Barbecue stated that “the first goal of our fight is to ensure that Ariel Henry's government does not remain in power.”
On Saturday, his gang attacked several police stations before freeing thousands of prisoners from the National Prison and the Croix des Bouquets prison.
Only about 100 prisoners remained in their cells at the national prison, prison officials said.
Among those who remained there were 17 former Colombian soldiers suspected of carrying out the assassination attempt on President Moïse.
In a video, they pleaded for help and said other inmates were trying to get them to leave their cells and were using them “as cannon fodder.”
The Colombian Foreign Ministry later announced that the 17 people had been moved to another prison.
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Thousands of Haitians have been forced to leave their homes in recent weeks and are seeking refuge in schools and other public buildings
The capital's residents mostly stayed at home on Monday, with only a few people setting out to get drinking water or food, the AFP news agency reported.
Serge Dalexis of the International Rescue Committee said from Haiti that it had become extremely difficult for people to access basic services such as health care, food and water.
“Port-au-Prince is currently lacking everything,” Dalexis said, adding that shootings were being reported in many areas of the city.
An estimated 15,000 people have been forced from their homes in recent weeks due to the violence.
Haiti: The Basics
- Population: 11.5 million (estimate)
- Area: 27,800 km² (slightly smaller than Belgium, about the size of the state of Maryland in the USA)
- Location: Caribbean country that borders the Dominican Republic
- Languages: French, Haitian Creole