Published March 15, 2024
Port-au-Prince, Haiti CNN — In a city silenced by gangs, everyone notices the thrum of a helicopter beating overhead in the night – a brief sign that someone very lucky has been able to leave Port-au-Prince.
CNN was able to land in the Haitian capital by helicopter on Friday after days of on-again, off-again plans that required detailed security arrangements and multiple layers of diplomatic approval.
Since our previous visit to Haiti last month, the situation has deteriorated sharply. Beleaguered Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his decision to step aside, but it is not clear who will fill the void or when.
A promised transitional government has yet to materialize, and plans for a Kenyan-led stabilisation force are in limbo.
Ordinary people leave their homes only rarely in Port-au-Prince these days, where daily battles between police and gangs send plumes of smoke into the air, gunshots echoing through quiet streets. Boulevards that would ordinarily be packed with cars and vendors are empty, the city’s painted “tap tap” taxis rarely full.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.amp.cnn.com
RELATED: Gunfire booms in Haiti as politicians seek to form interim gov’t
Published March 15, 2024
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—Gunfire rang out Thursday in Haiti’s capital and “bandits” set a police official’s house ablaze, ending three days of relative calm as politicians pressed on with talks to form an interim governing body.
The country has been convulsed for two weeks by a gang uprising, with the well-armed groups saying they wanted to topple Prime Minister Ariel Henry, an unpopular and unelected leader.
Amid the conflict, which has come with warnings of famine and civil war, bodies have littered the streets in recent days as social order melted away.
Overnight Wednesday into Thursday and during the morning hours, a lull in fighting was broken as automatic weapons fire boomed in Port-au-Prince, which is 80 percent controlled by gangs.
“I heard shots all night. I did not sleep a wink,” said a resident of Vivy Mitchell on the outskirts of the capital, who declined to give her name out of fear of reprisal.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.mb.com.ph
RELATED: Fear and chaos await Haitian migrants forced back over border
Published March 15, 2024
At the Dajabón border crossing between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, a constant stream of trucks pulls up carrying undocumented Haitian migrants, who are being deported back to their home country.
They are being sent to a nation in the grip of its most acute humanitarian crisis since the devastating earthquake in 2010, which killed hundreds of thousands.
“I’d been in the Dominican Republic for three years,” yelled construction worker, Michael Petiton, “they came into my house and took me from my home.”
He worked hard, he insisted, doing a job most Dominicans did not want. Now he is back in Haiti with only the clothes on his back and a few tools he managed to salvage in a rucksack.
Haiti’s already precarious situation has quickly deteriorated over the past weeks as gangs have launched coordinated attacks on key facilities to force the resignation of the country’s prime minister.
In total, more than 350,000 people have been internally displaced in Haiti – more than 15,000 of them in the last fortnight.
Yet here at the border crossing, the Dominican authorities have been sending back hundreds of undocumented Haitians every day.
