(Port-au-Prince) A district of Haiti’s capital has been plagued since Sunday by deadly gang attacks which intensified on Thursday, witnesses told AFP, while demonstrations against insecurity affect the country.
Thursday at dawn, bursts of automatic weapons were heard in the Solino district, located in the south of Port-au-Prince, columns of smoke rising into the sky, according to an AFP correspondent .
Members of a gang operating in Bel-Air, a neighboring district, have been carrying out attacks in the area since Sunday, a local resident told AFP.
Witnesses confirmed that people had been killed, without being able to specify the number.
PHOTO RALPH TEDY EROL, REUTERS
Multiple barricades were erected in Port-au-Prince.
According to Pierre Espérance, executive director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights, a humanitarian organization, these attacks have left at least twenty dead since Sunday.
“The victims include those who were murdered inside their burned homes and others who were shot by bandits while fleeing the attacks,” he said.
Neighboring neighborhoods, such as Carrefour Péan and Delmas 24, were also targeted by gang attacks.
To protect themselves, residents erected barricades throughout the capital and its surrounding areas.
At the same time, anti-government protests took place across Haiti at the call of Guy Philippe, a former Haitian police chief and politician, who has returned to the country after serving a prison sentence in the United States for money laundering linked to drug trafficking.
Hundreds of people have demonstrated since the start of the week in Jérémie, Miragoâne and Ouanaminthe to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, in power since the assassination in 2021 of President Jovenel Moïse.
The demonstrators criticize him for his inaction at the head of the country, ravaged by a deep economic, security and political crisis which has strengthened the grip of the gangs. Last year, the UN estimated that the latter controlled around 80% of the capital.
Faced with this serious security and humanitarian crisis, the UN Security Council gave its agreement in October to send a multinational mission led by Kenya to Haiti to help the Haitian police.