Armed gangs stormed the National Library of Haiti, located in the capital Port-au-Prince, on Wednesday, its director told AFP, a new illustration of the spiral of violence in this Caribbean country.
“I was told that the thugs are taking away the institution’s furniture. They also ransacked the building’s generator. I alerted the police for rapid intervention,” said Dangelo Néard.
“We have rare documents, more than 200 years old, of heritage importance which risk being burned or damaged by bandits,” added the library director.
After a few days of relative calm, the gangs resumed their attacks on Monday in several districts of the capital.
Last week, they attacked and looted the premises of the National School of Arts and the École Normale Supérieure, two universities also located in the capital.
The country has been ravaged for decades by poverty, natural disasters, political instability and gang violence.
In late February, powerful Haitian gang leaders, who now control much of Port-au-Prince, teamed up to attack police stations, prisons, the airport and the seaport to push for an exit Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
The latter announced on March 11 that he would resign to make way for a transition council.
Waiting authorities
But the formation of this council has still not been finalized, due to disagreements between political parties and other stakeholders who should appoint the next prime minister and doubts about the very legality of such a body.
“Within a week, we will have a prime minister chosen,” council member Leslie Voltaire promised AFP. The advisors are trying to agree to appoint him.
“The problem with time is that we spent two and a half years with Ariel Henry who did nothing, and now in two weeks we want to do a lot of things,” he said. added.
According to him, “there was a leader who had no political will to combat insecurity, to combat the poverty of the people, to allow airports, ports, etc. to operate. and who let the situation deteriorate.”
“We had put the cart before the horse. »
The violence ravaging Port-au-Prince forced more than 53,000 people to flee the capital between March 8 and 27, mostly because of gangs.
A “cataclysmic” situation has alerted the UN, with 1,554 killed during the first three months of 2024, deploring that “porous borders” facilitate the supply of gangs with weapons and ammunition.
The population is facing a serious humanitarian crisis, with shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods.
As clashes between police and gangs continue, the country’s police said in a statement published on X on Tuesday that they were “determined and committed to restoring order and peace.”