(Port-au-Prince) Thousands of Haitians demonstrated Monday in Port-au-Prince to protest against the government and its call for foreign aid to deal with endemic insecurity, the humanitarian crisis and a emerging epidemic of cholera.
Posted yesterday at 11:50 p.m.
The day after a call from the UN Secretary General for the deployment of an international armed force in Haiti to help a “paralyzed” country, the demonstration in the capital was marred Monday by violence, scenes of looting and the police used tear gas to disperse the crowd, noted an AFP correspondent.
Several people were shot and one person was killed, the AFP correspondent also noted.
Organizers blamed the police for the death. “This young girl posed no threat. She was killed expressing her desire to live in dignity,” denounced a protester in his forties who wished to remain anonymous.
“The United States and Canada are interfering in the internal affairs of Haiti,” denounced another protester.
“We certainly need help to develop our country. But we don’t need boots. Moreover, this government has no legitimacy to request military assistance. We oppose this option,” he added.
Haiti has been the scene for several weeks of violent demonstrations and looting, after the announcement by Prime Minister Ariel Henry of a rise in fuel prices.
Demonstrations calling for his resignation, and which now oppose his appeal for international aid, are also taking place in other cities of the country.
The Haitian government formalized on Friday its request to the international community for a “specialized armed force” in order to “stop, throughout the territory, the humanitarian crisis” caused by the action of the gangs, which plague the country.
On Sunday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres “urged the international community […] to examine this request as a matter of urgency. He denounced in a letter to the members of the Security Council “the criminal gangs which have taken control of strategic infrastructures such as the international port of Port-au-Prince and the country’s main fuel terminal (Varreux)”.
To this situation of shortage of hydrocarbons is added the resurgence of cholera, three years after the end of an epidemic which had killed more than 10,000 people.
Already 32 confirmed cases of the disease and 16 deaths have been recorded over the period from 1er to October 9, according to a point Monday from the Haitian Ministry of Public Health, which also cites 224 suspected cases, particularly in the civil prison of Port-au-Prince, the largest prison in the country.