(Port-au-Prince) The Haitian capital Port-au-Prince fell prey to intense exchanges of gunfire on Saturday as the humanitarian situation worsened and the political transition was delayed.
According to residents contacted by AFP, there has been heavy gunfire in the town since dawn.
Attacks by “armed bandits” were reported against the base of the departmental operation and intervention brigade (BOID) in Fort National and against the motorized intervention brigade (BIM) in Clercine, in the metropolitan area of Port au Prince.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 33,000 people have fled the city and its suburbs over the past two weeks to seek shelter from gang violence.
Port-au-Prince woke up on Friday with charred corpses in its streets, after attacks by armed men and a police operation which led to the death of a gang leader, Ernst Julmé alias “Ti Grèg”.
The UN is very concerned about the humanitarian crisis hitting the poorest country in the Caribbean: around five million people, almost half the population, face high levels of “acute food insecurity”.
“One in two people are now hungry. The rise in hunger is fueling the security crisis ravaging the country. We need urgent measures now,” Jean-Martin Bauer, director of the World Food Program (WFP) in Haiti, warned on Friday.
Haiti, already the victim of a very serious political and security crisis, has been gripped by renewed violence since the beginning of March, when several gangs joined forces to attack strategic locations in Port-au-Prince, saying they wanted to overthrow the first Minister Ariel Henry.
Very contested, the latter was unable to return to his country after a trip to Kenya. According to consistent sources, he is now in California, after leaving Puerto Rico, an American territory.
Mr. Henry agreed to resign on March 11 and since then negotiations have been underway to form transitional authorities.
But in the meantime, armed gangs are intensifying their attacks in the capital, of which they already control some 80%.
The big American neighbor has evacuated 230 of its nationals over the past week and the State Department issued a warning overnight from Friday to Saturday: “Do not go to Haiti.”