(Port-au-Prince) Five employees of an environmental protection agency were killed Wednesday in clashes with police in Haiti, where large demonstrations have been taking place for several days to demand the departure of Prime Minister Ariel Henry , who should in theory have left power on Wednesday, according to a political agreement signed in 2022.
The clash took place near the capital Port-au-Prince. The five armed agents of the Protected Areas Security Brigade, an organization which recently mutinied against the government, fired at the police who responded, a police source told AFP. Three other employees of the same agency were arrested, she added.
Thousands of people have been demonstrating since the beginning of the week in Port-au-Prince and across the country to demand the departure of the head of government.
“This Wednesday is D-Day. It’s the day Ariel Henry must leave power,” a motorcycle taxi driver in Port-au-Prince told AFP.
“I hope he will listen to reason. Otherwise, the voice of the people will be listened to,” promised the demonstrator who did not wish to give his name.
PHOTO DAVE SANDERS, THE NEW YORK TIMES ARCHIVES
Haitian Prime Minister, Ariel Henry
According to an agreement concluded in December 2022 after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, the current Prime Minister was to organize elections so as to leave power on February 7, 2024 to new elected officials.
No elections have taken place since 2016 in this small, poor Caribbean country and the presidency remains vacant.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry, in power since 2021, “has not provided any solution to our problems,” denounced another demonstrator.
“The country is being held hostage by gangs. We can’t eat. We can’t send our children to school […] We can’t take it anymore,” lashed out at this unemployed forty-year-old, who also did not wish to give his name.
Haiti is facing a serious political, security and humanitarian crisis, with armed gangs having taken control of entire sections of the country, and the number of homicides having more than doubled in 2023.
Dominican Republic in “state of alert”
The ongoing demonstrations are being held at the call of several opposition parties, joined by agents of the Protected Areas Security Brigade (BSAP), initially responsible for protecting forests and which is in rebellion with the government. .
February 7 is a date all the more symbolic as it marks in Haiti the anniversary of the end of the Haitian Duvalier dictatorship, in 1986.
PHOTO RALPH TEDY EROL, REUTERS
Prime Minister Ariel Henry, in power since 2021, “has not provided any solution to our problems”, denounced a demonstrator.
Tuesday evening, a police station in Ouanaminthe, in the northeast of the country, was attacked by a procession, again according to local media.
Major roads have been closed and schools across the country have been closed since Monday due to these protest movements.
The neighboring Dominican Republic announced Wednesday that it was in a “state of alert” and had increased security at its borders due to ongoing protests in Haiti.
The assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021 plunged the poorest country on the American continent even further into chaos.
Faced with this crisis, the UN Security Council gave its agreement in October to send a multinational mission to Haiti led by Kenya to support the Haitian police overwhelmed by gangs.
But a Nairobi court blocked Kenya’s sending of police officers at the end of January. The Kenyan government announced that it would contest this decision, with the Haitian government maintaining hope.