(Port-au-Prince) As the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince continues to sink into gang-related violence, the United States announced on Sunday that it had evacuated some of its embassy staff, followed by Germany, which evacuated its ambassador and members of the European Union delegation.
Read “Five keys to better understanding the crisis in Haiti”
The United States evacuated some of its embassy staff and reinforced the teams responsible for its security. “The increase in gang violence in the neighborhoods near the American embassy and the airport has led the State Department to decide to proceed with the departure of additional agents,” a diplomatic spokesperson said on Sunday. American.
Germany announced a similar move. “Due to the very tense security situation in Haiti, the German ambassador and the permanent representative in Port-au-Prince left today for the Dominican Republic with representatives of the EU delegation,” said a ministry spokesperson said, adding that they would work from the Dominican Republic “until further notice.”
Port-au-Prince is the scene of clashes between police and armed gangs, who attack strategic sites, including the presidential palace, police stations and prisons.
And this in the absence of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, whose resignation they are demanding, just like part of the population.
It is “a city under siege,” warned Philippe Branchat, the head for Haiti of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), on Saturday.
“We lost all our property, everything we owned. We are losing our families,” Reginald Bristol, a resident of Port-au-Prince, told AFP.
The authorities declared a state of emergency a week ago in the West department, which includes the capital, and established a nighttime curfew.
Faced with the new outbreak of violence, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) invited representatives of the United States, France, Canada and the UN to an emergency meeting on Monday in Jamaica.
PHOTO SIMON MAINA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Prime Minister Ariel Henry is stuck outside the country.
International response
The UN Security Council agreed months ago to send a Kenyan-led multinational mission to help Haitian police, but its deployment is sorely overdue.
The Haitian Prime Minister signed an agreement in Nairobi at the beginning of March to allow the sending of Kenyan police officers, and has since sought to return to Haiti. At last news, he was still stuck in Puerto Rico, an American territory in the Caribbean.
The head of American diplomacy and the president of Kenya spoke about the ongoing crisis and “underlined their unwavering commitment to the deployment of a multinational security support mission” to “create the necessary security conditions to the holding of free and fair elections,” a State Department spokesperson said Saturday.
Haiti, without a president or parliament, has not had an election since 2016 and Ariel Henry, appointed by President Jovenel Moïse just before his assassination in 2021, should have left office in early February.
Closed administrations
Due to the ongoing violence in the capital, the United States Embassy will restrict its activities, the State Department spokesperson said.
The evacuation of part of its staff took place during the night from Saturday to Sunday by helicopter, according to residents of the neighborhood.
PHOTO RALPH TEDY EROL, REUTERS
People flee violence around their homes with their belongings on March 9 in Port-au-Prince.
“All evacuated personnel work for the US government,” a US official said, adding that “security officers were transported to Port-au-Prince to reinforce embassy security.”
The capital’s administrations and schools have been closed for several days, and the airport and port are no longer operating, raising fears of a collapse in supplies for the population of the poorest country in the Americas.
Access to care is severely compromised, with “hospitals which have been attacked by gangs and which have had to evacuate medical staff and patients, including newborns”, according to the IOM.
Pope Francis said on Sunday he was following this “serious crisis” “with concern and pain” and called on all parties to work for peace.
According to the IOM, 362,000 people – more than half of whom are children – are currently displaced in Haiti, a figure which has jumped 15% since the start of the year.
“Since last night we haven’t been able to sleep. We are fleeing, me with my personal belongings placed on my head, without knowing where to go,” Filienne Setoute, a contract civil servant, who had to leave her house, told AFP.
Small sign of hope: five people kidnapped in February in Port-au-Prince, including four religious, have been released, their Catholic congregation announced on Sunday, calling for the release of two other religious held.
Release of religious people kidnapped in February
Five people kidnapped in February in Port-au-Prince, including four religious, were released, their Catholic congregation announced on Sunday, in a context of increased violence by armed gangs in the capital of Haiti.
“The Congregation of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart […] is relieved by the release of four of its members and a collaborator held hostage since February 23,” she wrote in a press release.
“The fight is not over, because the brothers Pierre Isaac Valméus and Adam Montclaison are still deprived of their freedom,” she continues.
The six religious were kidnapped on February 23 in Port-au-Prince, where such acts have become commonplace.
A ransom demand had been made after their kidnapping, AFP learned from a source close to the congregation.