(Port-Au-Prince) Haitian police have been overwhelmed by a series of violent attacks coordinated by members of armed gangs across the capital, in which four police officers were killed, a spokesperson for the Haitian police said Friday. National Police.
Thursday’s attacks in Port-au-Prince were carried out by armed men who opened fire including at Haiti’s international airport and took control of two police stations, prompting people to flee dozens of communities, frightened, while schools and businesses closed their doors.
“The situation yesterday was horrible,” said spokesperson Garry Desrosiers in an interview with Radio Caraibes. The city center was at war. »
Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who today leads a gang gathering known as G9, claimed responsibility for the attacks.
He said the goal was to capture Haiti’s police chief and government ministers and prevent the return of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was in Kenya to lobby for the deployment of Haiti’s police officers. East African country, supported by the UN, to fight gangs in Haiti.
Neither the police chief nor government ministers were injured or captured in Thursday’s attacks.
As of late Friday morning, most of Port-au-Prince remained calm as people tentatively returned to their daily activities. The main international airport reopened, but on Friday afternoon the U.S. Embassy reported heavy gunfire near the airport and said it was temporarily halting all official travel to that airport.
Meanwhile, the capital’s downtown area was largely deserted, with most schools and businesses remaining closed.
Mr. Desrosiers maintained that the young police officers held their ground “to guarantee the safety of the population,” adding that the authorities were unable to reach the police station in time to repel the attack.
He said police faced a lack of logistics and equipment Thursday to properly combat gangs, as well as roadblocks remaining in place Friday in dozens of communities preventing officers from responding to attacks.
Haiti’s national police have about 9,000 officers on duty at any one time for a country of more than 11 million people, according to the United Nations. Agents are regularly overwhelmed by powerful armed bands that control up to 80% of Port-au-Prince.
“The police need more equipment to be able to deal with the situation,” said Mr. Desrosiers.
Prime Minister Henry has not commented publicly on the situation and simply shrugged his shoulders when asked if he thought it was safe to return to Haiti from Kenya.
He signed reciprocal agreements with Kenyan President William Ruto on Friday to try to save the planned deployment of Kenyan police in Haiti. Kenya’s High Court ruled in January that the deployment was unconstitutional, in part because the original deal could not be based on reciprocal agreements between the two countries.