(Port-au-Prince) Armed gangs stormed a new police station on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital plagued by gang violence, a police officer told AFP on Saturday. police union.
The police station, attacked during the night from Friday to Saturday, is located in the commune of Gressier, south of Port-au-Prince, Lionel Lazarre, general coordinator of the National Union of Haitian Police Officers, told AFP.
Questioned by AFP, the authorities did not immediately provide an assessment. Lionel Lazarre was also unable to indicate whether any police officers were victims during this attack.
Several vehicles that were in the building’s parking lot were set on fire.
A resident of Gressier assured that the fighting had lasted “hours” and that the police had “had to retreat” in the face of the “strike power of the bandits”.
“This morning, a large majority of residents are forced to flee,” she added, on condition of anonymity.
On social media, videos of people armed with assault rifles inside the building were also widely shared.
Criminal gangs, who control most of Port-au-Prince as well as the roads leading to the rest of the territory, have been attacking strategic sites in the country for weeks, including several police stations.
Another police union, SPNH-17, indicated on the social network X that 25 police stations and branches are now in the hands of gangs.
Haiti has suffered from chronic political instability for decades. At the end of February, the gangs, whose violence was already ravaging entire sections of the territory, launched coordinated attacks against strategic sites, saying they wanted to overthrow the contested former Prime Minister Ariel Henry. The latter announced his resignation on March 11.
The presidential transition council, officially inaugurated in April, said one of its priorities would be to restore security.