Tag: Haiti

US military airlifts some embassy personnel from Haiti, bolsters security | Armed Groups News

The US operation comes amid gang violence that threatens to bring down the government and has led thousands to flee their homes.

The US military says it has carried out an operation in Haiti to airlift non-essential embassy personnel from the Caribbean country amid a state of emergency.

It also brought in additional personnel to boost security at the compound in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince.

“This airlift of personnel into and out of the embassy is consistent with our standard practice for embassy security augmentation worldwide, and no Haitians were on board the military aircraft,” the US military’s Southern Command said in a statement on Sunday.

The US embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti [File: Matias Delacroix/AP Photo]

Haiti is spiralling deeper into gang violence, which threatens to bring down the government and has led thousands to flee their homes.

The escalation began a week ago after Haiti’s embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry agreed to hold general elections in mid-2025 while attending a meeting of Caribbean leaders in Guyana.

Henry has faced a crisis of legitimacy since he took up his post less than two weeks after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

In the past week, Henry flew from Guyana to Kenya – and gangs in Haiti set fire to police stations, attacked the main international airport, which remains closed, and raided the country’s two largest prisons, where they freed more than 4,000 inmates.

During that time, Henry was in Nairobi, seeking a deal for the long-delayed United Nations-backed mission to help tackle gang violence.

Kenya announced last year that it would lead the force, but months of domestic legal wrangling have effectively put the mission on hold.

Henry is currently in Puerto Rico, where he was forced to land after armed groups laid siege to the airport and the neighbouring Dominican Republic barred him from entering after officials there closed the country’s airspace to flights to and from Haiti.

Earlier in the week, the head of the powerful G9 Haitian gang alliance, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, warned, “If Ariel Henry doesn’t resign, if the international community continues to support him, we’ll be heading straight for a civil war that will lead to genocide.”

Jimmy Chérizier holds a press conference in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, March 5, 2024 [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo]

On Saturday, the US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Kenyan President William Ruto about the Haiti crisis.

The two men underscored their commitment to a multinational security mission to restore order.

The US Southern Command’s statement said Washington remained committed to those goals.

“Our embassy remains focused on advancing US government efforts to support the Haitian people, including mobilizing support for the Haitian National Police, expediting the deployment of the United Nations-authorized Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission and accelerating a peaceful transition of power via free and fair elections,” it said.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

UN warns surge in gang violence puts pregnant women at risk in Haiti | Politics News

‘Too many women and young women in Haiti are victims of indiscriminate violence committed by armed gangs,’ UN says.

The United Nations has warned that nearly 3,000 pregnant women could be cut off from essential health services in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, which has been paralysed as a result of surging gang violence.

In a statement on Friday to mark International Women’s Day, the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) said nearly 450 pregnant women could suffer “life-threatening” complications without access to healthcare.

Another 521 survivors of sexual violence — a prevalent problem that has worsened amid the instability in Haiti — also could be cut off from medical services by the end of the month if the violence persists, the UN office warned.

“Today, too many women and young women in Haiti are victims of indiscriminate violence committed by armed gangs,” said Ulrika Richardson, BINUH’s deputy special representative.

Widespread gang violence has plagued Haiti for nearly three years, particularly after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021 deepened political instability in the Caribbean nation.

The crisis worsened last weekend when gunmen overwhelmed the main penitentiary in Port-au-Prince and another nearby prison, freeing thousands of inmates in a raid that left several people dead.

Haiti’s de facto leader, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, was out of the country when the recent spate of violence erupted, and gang leaders have called for his immediate resignation.

Henry — who has faced a crisis of legitimacy since he took up his post less than two weeks after President Moise’s killing — has been in the US territory of Puerto Rico since earlier this week, apparently unable or unwilling to return to Haiti.

He had previously travelled to Kenya in late February in an attempt to revive plans for a multi-national security force to help bolster Haiti’s police forces.

On Friday, the US Department of State said Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Henry a day earlier and urged the Haitian leader to “expedite a political transition through the creation of a broad-based, independent presidential college”.

This would then help “steer the country toward the deployment of a Multinational Security Support mission and free and fair elections”, the State Department said in a readout of the talks.

“The Secretary [Blinken] urged Henry to support this proposal in the interest of restoring peace and stability to Haiti so the Haitian people can resume their daily lives free from violence and despair.”

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Haiti extends state of emergency as violence and displacement soar | Politics News

Haitians have been plunged into a deepening crisis, as gang violence forces thousands of people to flee their homes and businesses and schools to shutter.

On Thursday, Haiti’s government extended a state of emergency until April 3 in the Ouest Department, where the capital, Port-au-Prince, is located. It was first imposed on Sunday. The measure includes nightly curfews and bans on protests, although rights groups have said they have done little to stem the violence.

A new police station was also set on fire on Wednesday night in the Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of Bas-Peu-de-Chose, according to a statement that the leader of the SYNAPOHA police union gave to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

The surge in violence began over the weekend when armed groups launched a wave of attacks in the capital, including raids on two prisons that led to the escape of thousands of inmates.

According to a SYNAPOHA tally, at least 10 police buildings have been destroyed since the start of the unrest.

Haiti has been plagued by widespread gang violence for more than two years, particularly in the wake of the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. That killing created a power vacuum and worsened political instability in the Caribbean nation.

The country’s de facto leader, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, has faced a crisis of legitimacy and continuing calls to resign. Moise chose Henry for the post just days before he was killed.

This week, the head of the powerful G9 Haitian gang alliance, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, warned, “If Ariel Henry doesn’t resign, if the international community continues to support him, we’ll be heading straight for a civil war that will lead to genocide.”

Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting on Thursday from Dajabon, a Dominican town on the border with Haiti, said displaced Haitians were being prevented from entering the country.

“We’re being told that the border is now closed,” Bo said. “Security forces here are on high alert.”

The United Nations said this week that at least 15,000 people in Port-au-Prince — where gangs are believed to control about 80 percent of the territory — have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the escalating violence.

The international organisation on Thursday warned that the country’s health system was on the brink of collapse.

“What we do know is happening [in Haiti] is that there’s looting going on, shooting going on. Businesses are closed. Schools, universities and most public services are not working because of the situation on the ground,” Bo added.

In the meantime, uncertainty continues to build around the fate of Henry, who was out of the country when the recent wave of violence began.

The Miami Herald reported on Wednesday that the United States had asked Henry to agree to a new transitional government — and resign — amid the growing crisis.

But senior US officials, including the country’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, denied that report.

“What we’ve asked the Haitian prime minister to do is move forward on a political process that will lead to the establishment of a presidential transitional council” to allow for elections, Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on Wednesday.

“We think that it’s urgent … that he moves forward in that direction and start the process of bringing normalcy back to the people of Haiti.”

Henry has been in the US territory of Puerto Rico since Tuesday, apparently unable or unwilling to return to his strife-torn country. He recently visited Kenya to rally support for a multinational security force to assist in Haiti’s fight against gang violence.

What comes next?

The National Human Rights Defense Network, a government accountability group, said there is little hope in stemming the violence under the current circumstances.

In a position paper released on Wednesday, the network said the unrest has been fuelled by collusion between the “hierarchy of the Haitian National Police” and criminal gangs, who continue to benefit from the “protection of Haiti’s judicial and political authorities”.

“Today, the facts are clear: The government authorities have resigned. The streets of the capital and the entire Ouest department are given over to armed bandits,” the group said. “And the Haitian population has simply been abandoned to its fate.”

The group called on “vital sectors” in Haiti to “provide the country with a non-predatory government of human rights, made up of men and women of integrity” — one that is committed to building functioning institutions, dismantling gangs and routing corruption.



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

US denies pressuring Haiti PM Henry to resign, urges political ‘transition’ | Politics News

The United States says it is not pressuring Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry to step down amid a fresh wave of violence and soaring instability in the Caribbean nation, where powerful gang leaders are demanding Henry’s resignation.

During a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington is “not calling on him [Henry] or pushing for him to resign”.

However, Miller told reporters that the US is urging Henry “to expedite the transition to an empowered and inclusive governance structure that will move with urgency to help the country prepare for a multinational security support mission”.

That mission, which has the backing of the United Nations but has been stalled for months, will then “address the security situation and pave the way for free and fair elections” in Haiti, Miller said.

His comments come after the Miami Herald reported early on Wednesday that the State Department had asked Henry to agree to a new transitional government and resign amid the growing crisis in Haiti.

A surge in gang violence that began at the weekend — and included attacks on police stations and raids on two prisons in the capital of Port-au-Prince — has displaced tens of thousands of people and effectively paralysed the city.

A 74-year-old neurosurgeon, Henry was sworn in as Haiti’s prime minister in July 2021, less than two weeks after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated. Moise had chosen Henry for the post shortly before he was killed.

The assassination worsened months of political instability in Haiti, and gang violence soared in the resulting power vacuum.

Meanwhile, Henry — who long enjoyed the backing of the US and other Western powers, including the so-called Core Group of nations — faced a crisis of legitimacy from the very start of his tenure.

Some Haitian civil society groups had urged him to hand power over to an inclusive, transitional government, a move they argued would help stem the gang violence and widespread insecurity plaguing the country.

Henry rejected that demand, but said he was seeking unity and dialogue. He also repeatedly said that elections could not be held until it is safe to do so.

But that angered many people across Haiti, including armed gang leaders who over the past few years have used pressure tactics – including fuel terminal blockades – in an effort to force him to resign.

Current crisis

The situation escalated when Henry left Haiti last month to attend a four-day summit in the South American country of Guyana organised by a regional trade bloc known as the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM).

While Henry did not speak to the media, Caribbean leaders said that he promised to hold elections in mid-2025. A day later, coordinated gang attacks began in Haiti’s capital and beyond.

Henry then departed Guyana for Kenya last week to meet with President William Ruto and to push for the UN-backed deployment of a Kenyan police force, which a court in the East African country ruled was unconstitutional.

Officials never said when the prime minister was due back in Haiti following his Kenya trip, and his whereabouts were unknown for several days until he unexpectedly landed in Puerto Rico on Tuesday.

In the meantime, the Haitian government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew as the country’s already overwhelmed and ill-equipped police force tried to stem the surge in gang violence.

Haitian gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier has warned of ‘civil war’ if Henry doesn’t step down [Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters]

Schools and shops have closed in Port-au-Prince — where gangs are believed to control about 80 percent of the city — and 15,000 Haitians have been forced to flee their homes in recent days, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The head of a powerful Haitian gang alliance known as G9, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, also warned that “if Ariel Henry doesn’t resign, if the international community continues to support him, we’ll be heading straight for a civil war that will lead to genocide”.

At UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield echoed Miller at the State Department when she was asked if Washington had urged Henry to step down.

“What we’ve asked the Haitian prime minister to do is move forward on a political process that will lead to the establishment of a presidential transitional council” to allow for elections, Thomas-Greenfield told reporters.

“We think that it’s urgent … that he moves forward in that direction and start the process of bringing normalcy back to the people of Haiti.”

‘No quick fix’

Jake Johnston, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, and expert on Haiti, said it is “no surprise” that the US government is denying reports that it is asking Henry to resign.

“But what they are saying they are asking Henry to do is likely to result in his resignation, because nobody is making a political deal that keeps him in power,” Johnston wrote on X.

Emmanuela Douyon, a Haitian rights advocate and analyst, also wrote in a social media post that “there is no quick fix for such a profound and protracted crisis”.

“It’s urgent to act to save lives, protect the population, restore peace, and reinstate democratic order. This necessitates addressing not only the activities of gangs but also tackling corruption and criminal activities, including collusion with gangs within political and economic elites,” she said.

“To guide this process efficiently and keep it as short as possible, we need capable and credible leaders, some political consensus, and a significant amount of political will. It is imperative to ensure that forthcoming elections are inclusive, free, fair, and credible.”



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Haiti gang leader warns of ‘genocide’ if PM returns | Politics

NewsFeed

The gang leader behind an armed uprising in Haiti while Prime Minister Ariel Henry is out of the country has said there will be a civil war if Henry returns.

Published On 6 Mar 2024

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Haiti gang leader warns of civil war unless PM Ariel Henry steps down | Politics News

Thousands have fled since gangs began a coordinated campaign to push Henry from power.

Jimmy Cherizier, the Haitian gang leader behind a violent attempt to overthrow Prime Minister Ariel Henry, has warned of civil war and “genocide” unless Henry steps down.

Armed criminal gangs, who control large swathes of the country, launched a coordinated assault to remove the prime minister when he was out of the country last week.

Henry, who was supposed to step down in February, was reported to be in Puerto Rico, a United States territory, on Tuesday after the Dominican Republic refused permission for his plane to land. The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

“If Ariel Henry doesn’t resign, if the international community continues to support him, we’ll be heading straight for a civil war that will lead to genocide,” Cherizier, a 46-year-old former police officer who goes by the name Barbecue and is under United Nations sanctions for human rights abuses, told reporters in the capital Port-au-Prince.

“Either Haiti becomes a paradise or a hell for all of us. It’s out of the question for a small group of rich people living in big hotels to decide the fate of people living in working-class neighbourhoods,” he added.

Gangs opened fire on police late on Monday outside the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, as dozens of employees and other workers fled the bullets. The airport remained closed on Tuesday, along with schools and banks.

Over the weekend the gangs raided Haiti’s two largest prisons, enabling thousands of inmates to escape.

“Haiti is now under the control of the gangs. The government isn’t present,” said Michel St-Louis, 40, standing in front of a burned-down police station in the capital. “I’m hoping they can keep Henry out so whoever takes power can restore order.”

Henry, who came to power under a deal agreed with the opposition following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, was supposed to step down in February so elections could be held.

But in recent months, gangs have pushed beyond the city and into rural areas overwhelming security forces in one of the world’s most impoverished countries.

Henry has said the situation remains too volatile for elections and has been urging the deployment of a UN-backed multinational police mission to help stabilise the country.

At least 15,000 people have recently evacuated the worst-hit parts of Port-au-Prince, said Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Rights group Plan International said many were fleeing the capital for Artibonite, traditionally Haiti’s farming region whose residents are now facing food shortages as fighting spreads north.

The government has declared a state of emergency and nighttime curfew, while the UN Security Council has scheduled a closed-door meeting on the situation for later on Wednesday.

Countries in the region have withdrawn embassy staff and advised their citizens to leave.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Wyclef Jean sings Haiti’s prime minister ‘Ariel’s gotta go’’ | Conflict

NewsFeed

Haitian musician Wyclef Jean is joining calls for the removal of Haiti’s prime minister from office following increasing violence in the country. The Grammy award winning artist shared his message in a song that he sang for Al Jazeera.

Published On 5 Mar 2024

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

What has caused security to deteriorate in Haiti? | Show Types

State of emergency declared after unrest worsens and thousands of prisoners break out of jail.

Haiti’s director of National Police has warned the capital is at war.

Port-au-Prince has been overrun by gangs.

A state of emergency has been declared after gang members attacked two prisons over the weekend – freeing several thousand prisoners.

The security situation worsened after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated three years ago.

For months, protesters have been calling for Prime Minister Ariel Henry to step down. They are angry about delayed elections, the rising cost of living and insecurity.

The United Nations says the violence has forced 300,000 people from their homes this year.

The foreign minister has likened Haiti to a warzone.

To help restore order, the UN has proposed sending a multinational force.

So what has led to this crisis? And is international intervention the way to resolve it?

Presenter: Jonah Hull

Guests:

Francois Guillaume – Haitian ambassador to Qatar

Erwan de Cherisey – Principal, Janes defence intelligence company

Vanda Felbab-Brown – Director of initiative on non-state armed actors at the Brookings Institution

Ralph Emmanuel Francois – Haitian social entrepreneur and activist

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Thousands displaced as Haiti’s ‘rapidly deteriorating’ crisis raises alarm | Armed Groups News

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned” by the situation in Haiti, as a surge in gang violence has displaced tens of thousands of people and effectively paralysed the capital of Port-au-Prince.

Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Monday that the city faces a “rapidly deteriorating security situation”.

“Armed gangs have intensified their attacks on critical infrastructure over the weekend, including on police stations and two penitentiaries,” he said, relaying the secretary general’s concerns.

Haiti has been plagued by widespread gang violence for more than two years, since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

The country’s de facto leader, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, whom Moise chose for the post just days before he was killed, has faced a crisis of legitimacy. Attempts to chart a political transition for Haiti have failed, and armed groups have fought to fill the power vacuum.

The resulting violence has impeded access to healthcare facilities, forced the closure of schools and worsened an already dire hunger crisis by cutting residents of gang-controlled areas off from critical supplies.

The situation deteriorated further on Saturday when gunmen overwhelmed the main penitentiary in Port-au-Prince and another nearby prison, freeing thousands of inmates in a raid that left several people dead.

The Haitian government declared a state of emergency on Sunday evening and imposed a three-day nightly curfew to try to restore order.

But some of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders — including Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, who heads the powerful G9 gang alliance — say their goal is to bring down Henry.

The Haitian prime minister was in Kenya last week when the latest unrest began. The visit aimed to revive plans for a possible UN-backed police deployment to Haiti to help stem the country’s gang violence.

The two countries signed a “reciprocal” agreement to deploy police from the East African country to Haiti, Kenyan President William Ruto said on Friday, but it remains unclear if and when the deployment might happen.

“Henry has not made any public announcements or has been seen since Friday, when he was in Nairobi,” Renata Segura, the deputy director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit think tank, wrote in a post on social media on Monday afternoon.

“With an already very thin grasp on power, Henry’s silence speaks volumes.”

Some Haitian civil society leaders have raised concerns around the prospect of international intervention, arguing that history has demonstrated that foreign forces bring “more problems than solutions” to the country.

They say safeguards need to be in place to protect Haitians from problems that have arisen in the past. In recent years, for instance, a UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti was marred by sexual abuse claims and links to a deadly cholera outbreak.

But Haiti’s national police force is underfunded and ill-equipped to respond to the gangs, which the UN estimates now control about 80 percent of the capital. Many Port-au-Prince residents are desperate for an end to the violence, with some resorting to “vigilante justice“.

William O’Neill, the UN’s designated expert on human rights in Haiti, told Al Jazeera that a foreign force could help bolster the Haitian police. “The Haitian National Police are overwhelmed and out-gunned,” he said.

“One of the biggest problems is a massive flow of guns and ammunition from the United States to Haiti. They need support, they’ve been begging for support.”

O’Neill added that an international force to Haiti must be “well led, well equipped, [and] with the right mandate”.

“What happens if there is no force? You’re just going to have a spiralling downward into the chaos and violence that you just saw this past weekend.”

In Port-au-Prince on Monday, an Agence France-Presse reporter said some locals were on the streets looking to buy water and fuel.

Schools and banks were closed amid the latest uptick in violence, and people sheltered for safety in schools, sports venues, gyms and public buildings, often without adequate toilets, health facilities or drinking water.

“This morning, the city is paralysed,” Carlotta Pianigiani, a coordinator in Port-au-Prince for the Alima medical NGO, told the news agency.

“Public transport is practically at a standstill, private vehicles are rare, and schools are closed. Some roads are also barricaded.”

Pianigiani said 15,000 people were displaced in the recent unrest and that the largest public hospital suspended its operations last week. She added that the situation had been “already very tense”.

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said early on Sunday that its Tabarre hospital in Port-au-Prince added 20 beds to respond to an increase in injured people arriving for treatment.

Since the end of February, the hospital has received at least 10 wounded patients each day as a result of armed clashes.

“MSF needs medical supplies that are now at the city’s port but are not currently accessible. MSF is very concerned about the possibility of running out of supplies,” the group posted on social media.

“Tens of thousands of people had to flee their homes, leaving everything behind, and are now displaced in different areas of Port-au-Prince.”



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Thousands of inmates escape prison amid deepening Haiti violence | Politics News

At least 12 people reported dead as gangs pushing for prime minister’s removal attack two prisons.

At least 12 people have been killed as thousands of inmates escaped the main prison in Port-au-Prince in deepening gang violence designed to remove Prime Minister Ariel Henry from power.

Gangs led by Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer known as Barbecue, attacked the jail in the country’s capital overnight on Saturday.

Pierre Esperance of the National Network for Defense of Human Rights said only about 100 of the National Penitentiary’s estimated 3,800 inmates remained inside after the assault.

“We counted many prisoners’ bodies,” he added.

A reporter from the AFP news agency who visited the prison on Sunday said they saw about a dozen bodies outside it. The gate was open and there was “hardly anyone” left inside, they added.

The Reuters news agency reported that there were no signs of police officers at the prison and its main door was open.

“I’m the only one left in my cell,” one unidentified inmate told Reuters. “We were asleep when we heard the sound of bullets. The cell barriers are broken.”

In a statement, the Haitian government said police tried to repel the gang attack against that prison and at another facility called Croix des Bouquets. Esperance said it was not immediately clear how many inmates escaped from the second prison, which he said held 1,450 inmates.

The government said the attacks left “several wounded” among prison staff and inmates.

In a statement, it thanked “the population for their calm, despite these very difficult times.”

Violence in Haiti has spiralled in recent days after calls by Cherizier for criminal groups to unite and overthrow Henry. Cherizier heads an alliance of gangs and faces sanctions from the United Nations and the United States.

One voluntary prison worker on Sunday said that 99 prisoners had opted to remain in their cells in the main jail for fear of being killed in the crossfire. These included several retired Colombian soldiers who were jailed for their alleged involvement in the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise.

Authorities warned people to be careful and “to continue to support the National Police who will do everything possible to track down fleeing prisoners and arrest those responsible for these acts”, the statement read.

The prime minister’s exact whereabouts remained unclear on Sunday. Henry had been due to return from a visit to Kenya, where he signed a security deal to tackle gang violence.

Nearly 15,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in recent days, with 10 sites hosting internally displaced people emptied over the weekend, according to the United Nations’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Henry, who became prime minister in 2021 after Moise’s assassination, was supposed to step down by early February, but told a regional summit in Guyana before travelling to Kenya that he would only hold elections by August 2025 once the situation was more stable.

The last elections took place in 2016.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version