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Increasingly powerful gangs have attacked prisons and the airport serving Haiti’s capital in recent days, forcing businesses and schools to close as hundreds of people fled.
Heavily armed gangs have grown more powerful than Haiti’s weak government and they now control some 80% of the capital, according to the United Nations.
The latest attacks began Thursday as Prime Minister Ariel Henry flew to Kenya to push for the U.N.-backed deployment of a police force to help fight the gangs.
Heavy gunfire has echoed daily in the capital, overwhelming government forces. Frantz Elbé, director of the National Police, told Radio Caraïbes late last week that the recent attacks had left many of his officers unable to respond.
“The city center was at war,” he said.
Most residents were already staying indoors at night for self-protection. Government officials imposed a three-day nightly curfew that began Monday in an effort to help curb the violence.
Here’s what to know about the latest crisis:
Some of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders say their goal is bringing down Henry.
The country has failed to hold parliamentary and general elections in recent years and there are no elected officials. Henry was sworn in as prime minister with the backing of the international community after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The latest round of attacks began in February after Henry pledged to hold long-awaited general elections by mid-2025.
On Saturday, gunmen overwhelmed the main penitentiary in the Port-au-Prince capital and another nearby prison, freeing thousands of inmates in a raid that left several people dead.
Henry’s whereabouts were not public Monday. When asked in Kenya if it was safe for him to return to Haiti, Henry shrugged.
Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as “Barbecue” who is considered one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders, announced as gunmen began to attack infrastructure that he would try and capture the country’s police chief and government ministers.
Four police officers were killed when their stations came under siege.
Cherizier said last summer that he would fight any international armed force if they committed abuses, and he urged Haitians to mobilize against the government.
Other gang leaders also appear to be involved in recent attacks.
Johnson André, best known as “Izo” and leader of the 5 Seconds gang, appears in a video posted on TikTok wielding a heavy mallet in his right hand as he pretends to punch his face with his left hand.
Izo’s gang is considered an ally of G-Pep, archenemy of Barbecue’s gang federation, but alliances have been shifting in recent days.
A report released last month by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime found that “for the gangs, the development of alliances is a fluid phenomenon.”
It also noted how “only the most powerful gangs — such as Izo’s or Chérizier’s — are usually able to operate or profiteer outside their fiefdoms.”
Barbecue is leader of a gang federation known as G9 Family and Allies, and he has previously launched powerful attacks that have crippled the country. In late 2022, he seized control of an area surrounding a key fuel terminal in the capital of Port-au-Prince for almost two months.
