{"id":8989,"date":"2024-03-05T15:03:34","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T15:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/03\/05\/haiti-gangs-try-to-take-over-port-au-prince-airport\/"},"modified":"2024-03-05T15:03:34","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T15:03:34","slug":"haiti-gangs-try-to-take-over-port-au-prince-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/haiti-gangs-try-to-take-over-port-au-prince-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"Haiti gangs try to take over Port-au-Prince airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

HAITI, Mar 5 \u2013 Soldiers have been deployed to defend the airport of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, from an assault by armed gangs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Witnesses reported hearing shots ringing out in the vicinity of Toussaint Louverture Airport as security forces clashed with armed men.<\/p>\n

The gangs\u2019 aim is to prevent the return to Haiti of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is believed to be abroad.<\/p>\n

Violence has spiralled in his absence with the gangs demanding he resign.<\/p>\n

Mr Henry left Haiti last week to attend a regional summit in Guyana. From there, he travelled to Kenya to sign a deal on the deployment of a multinational police force to Haiti.<\/p>\n

His current whereabouts are not known but a spokesman for the US state department said: \u201cIt\u2019s our understanding that the prime minister is returning to the country [Haiti]\u201d.<\/p>\n

While he was in Kenya, a coalition of gangs led by a former police officer, Jimmy \u201cBarbecue\u201d Ch\u00e9rizier, went on the offensive, attacking police stations and storming two of Haiti\u2019s biggest prisons.<\/p>\n

About a dozen people were killed in the attack on the prisons. Thousands of inmates escaped and remain on the loose.<\/p>\n

A minister standing in for Mr Henry declared a 72-hour state of emergency.<\/p>\n

Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste reports that both international and national commercial flights have been suspended for the past days due to the violence. Le Nouvelliste added that no private planes had landed or taken off from the airport either.<\/p>\n

An attempt by gunmen to breach the airport compound through a hole in a wall was reportedly repelled by security forces.<\/p>\n

Control of the airport is key to the gangs\u2019 aim of stopping Prime Minister Henry from coming back to the country.<\/p>\n

The gang leader known as Barbecue has been calling for his ouster since the prime minister was sworn in as the successor to President Jovenel Mo\u00efse in July 2021.<\/p>\n

Already rampant gang violence was further fuelled by the murder of President Mo\u00efse by Colombian mercenaries, which left a power vacuum in the country.<\/p>\n

Armed gangs, wielding weapons smuggled in from the US, have gained control of an estimated 80% of the capital in recent years.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Henry has asked the international community to send troops to help fight the gangs. But a plan for Kenya to send 1,000 police officers to help contain the violence stalled after the Kenyan High Court blocked it.<\/p>\n

Mr Henry was in Nairobi for talks with Kenyan President William Ruto to try to salvage the deployment, when the latest violence flared.<\/p>\n

In a video posted on social media, Barbecue declared last week that \u201cthe first objective of our fight is to ensure that Ariel Henry\u2019s government does not remain in power\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, his gang attacked several police stations before freeing thousands of prisoners from the National Penitentiary and from the Croix des Bouquets jail.<\/p>\n

Only about 100 prisoners remained in their cells at the National Penitentiary, prison officials said.<\/p>\n

Among those who stayed put were 17 Colombian ex-soldiers suspected of having carried out the assassination of President Mo\u00efse.<\/p>\n

In a video, they pleaded for help, saying that other inmates were trying to get them to leave their cells and were going to use them \u201cas cannon fodder\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Colombian foreign ministry later announced that the 17 had been transferred to a different prison.<\/p>\n

Residents of the capital mainly stayed at home on Monday with only a few people venturing out to get drinking water or food, the AFP news agency reported.<\/p>\n

Speaking from Haiti, Serge Dalexis from the International Rescue Committee said it had become extremely difficult for people to access basic services such as health care, food and water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lack of everything now in Port-au-Prince,\u201d Mr Dalexis said, adding that shooting was being reported in many areas of the city.<\/p>\n

An estimated 15,000 people have been displaced from their homes over recent weeks due to the violence.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HAITI, Mar 5 \u2013 Soldiers have been deployed to defend the airport of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, from an assault by armed gangs. Witnesses reported hearing shots ringing out in the vicinity of Toussaint Louverture Airport as security forces clashed with armed men. The gangs\u2019 aim is to prevent the return to Haiti of Prime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}