(Port-au-Prince) Schools, businesses and traffic are slowly resuming in Port-au-Prince after a spring marked by violence by armed criminal groups. The arrival of 200 Kenyan police officers in late June, and another 200 last week, has raised faint hopes that security will return.
Few people dared to venture down John Brown Avenue until last month. Pedestrians, a few buses and motorbikes are back there, he noted. The Press this week. They were zigzagging Monday between the garbage piled in the middle of the street by employees of the Ministry of Public Works dispatched to the scene.
For two weeks, clean-up teams have been working around the Champ-de-Mars, the scene of most of the armed attacks last March and April.
“I can’t say we’re really safe,” said Max Fleury, 44, standing next to a large, foul-smelling pile of rubbish. For weeks, the city’s central artery had been abandoned, with weeds growing in the middle.
Despite the apparent new calm, there are still many places in the city that are inaccessible, according to Mr. Fleury, head of one of the sewer-cleaning teams.
PHOTO JEAN ELIE FORTUNÉ, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Street cleaning operation near the general hospital in Port-au-Prince
He still had to cross several neighborhoods controlled by armed groups to get to work on Monday. Last year, he was even kidnapped for a few hours with a colleague by one of these groups on their way home from work.
Mr. Fleury also warns that there are still members of armed criminal gangs in some surrounding streets. There are also still nearly 600,000 people displaced by armed attacks in the country, including tens of thousands in camps in Port-au-Prince.
Most of the territory of the northern suburbs and the southern suburbs of the capital has been abandoned by the authorities. Most of the city centre, where John-Brown Avenue ends, is also under the control of criminal groups. Very few people still dare to venture into this looted and ransacked place.
PHOTO ETIENNE CÔTÉ-PALUCK, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Max Fleury
I’m not saying that foreign forces are not the solution, but I believe in what I see. There is still nothing substantial that has been done. I should be able to walk around the city without encountering armed men.
Max Fleury, head of a sewer cleaning team in Port-au-Prince
Last week, nearly a dozen armoured vehicles from the Kenyan force carried out a first patrol in the city centre in collaboration with the Haitian police. However, no major operation has yet been reported.
A total of 1,000 Kenyan police officers are expected to be in Haiti by the end of the year. About 330 officers from Caribbean countries, mainly Jamaica, are also expected to arrive within weeks.
They received a month of training from Canadian soldiers in April at the request of the Jamaican government. Troops from Benin, Chad and Bangladesh, among others, are also expected to arrive for this multinational force sanctioned by the UN Security Council.
“The good Lord cannot let this continue”
A few meters from Mr. Fleury’s team, Darline* observes the cleaning operation while waiting for her daughter. The latter must finish in a few minutes her first exam from the Ministry of Education for the end of her primary school career.
National exams were delayed across the country due to attacks on Port-au-Prince during the school year. Her daughter’s school building in the heart of downtown also had to be abandoned and classes moved during the year.
“Things will change with the arrival of the Kenyan forces,” she believes, sitting on the steps at the entrance of a shop. “The good Lord cannot let this continue.”
PHOTO JEAN ELIE FORTUNÉ, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Garbage litters the streets of the Haitian capital, whose maintenance is disrupted by armed violence.
A block away, in the Champ-de-Mars, André* is more pessimistic. According to the Haitian policeman on leave, the Kenyan envoys came to make money, taking advantage of generous bonuses.
He believes that the Kenyan police went to put on a “show” in the city centre last week. “On 25th July, it [a fait] “They’ve been here for a month,” he recalls. “They’ll get their money soon.”
Having been in the profession for around fifteen years, he is also concerned about the collusion of certain high-ranking Haitian colleagues in the police with armed groups, as he explains having witnessed in the past.
We don’t know who to trust anymore. When you want to fight [contre les gangs]there is always something blocking you.
André*, police officer in Haiti
According to him, the Haitian police are also much less well equipped than those of the foreign mission. He recalls for example that the vehicles of the Kenyan forces are much more imposing and double-armored.
PHOTO JEAN ELIE FORTUNÉ, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Kenyan armored vehicles are circulating in Port-au-Prince.
“There are a series of second-hand armoured vehicles that have been given to the police [haïtienne]but they are useless. Some calibers still pierce them.”
Just last Sunday, another police station in the northern suburbs of Port-au-Prince was attacked by armed men. The only road to the south of the country has been almost completely blocked since last week due to another attack.
Standing next to a manhole where one of his colleagues is stuck with a shovel, Mr. Fleury also hopes that one day things can return to normal. “But until there is real change, I won’t believe it.”
* Fictitious first names
With the collaboration of Jean Elie Fortuné