Haiti’s police say they will step up efforts to combat the country’s deepening gang crisis after a series of fresh attacks in Port-au-Prince forced more families to flee their homes this week.
Authorities evacuated students near the famed Oloffson Hotel after gunfire rang out in western parts of the capital, and reports circulated online of priests trapped in a church in the Carrefour-Feuilles neighborhood following an assault by the Viv Ansanm gang coalition.
With 85% of Port-au-Prince under gang control, according to the United Nations, the government is facing mounting pressure to respond.
“They’re trying to take more areas, but police are there, making sure that doesn’t happen,” said Lionel Lazarre, deputy spokesman for Haiti’s national police, during a press conference on Wednesday.
This was reported by Euronews.
Lazarre confirmed that new plans are in place to counter the gangs’ territorial expansion but declined to share specifics, citing safety concerns.
He also revealed that police recently seized 10,000 bullets, weapons, and drugs from a minibus in Mirebalais, northeast of the capital.
The operation turned violent when two of the four suspects were lynched by a mob, while the others escaped.
Crisis Is "More Dire Than Ever"
The renewed police commitment comes just days after William O’Neill, the UN’s human rights expert on Haiti, warned that gang violence in the country has reached an unprecedented level.
“These violent criminal groups continue to extend and consolidate their hold even beyond the capital,” O’Neill said. “They kill, rape, terrorise, set fire to homes, orphanages, schools, hospitals, places of worship.”
O’Neill said more than 1 million people have been displaced by the violence, many now living in makeshift camps where hunger and sexual violence are widespread.
“For many,” he said, “it’s a matter of survival.”
Calls for Reinforcements
O’Neill urged Haitian authorities to strengthen the police force, which currently has 9,000 to 10,000 officers for a country of 11 million people—far fewer than the 50,000 officers in the neighboring Dominican Republic, which has a similar population.
He also emphasized the need to reinforce the Kenya-led multinational force, which began arriving in June and currently numbers about 1,000 officers. A force of 2,500, he said, “could have an enormous impact on controlling, dismantling, overpowering the gangs.”
In response to the ongoing violence, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Tuesday extended its ban on flights to Port-au-Prince until 8 September. The original ban was introduced in November after gangs opened fire on three commercial planes, and was initially set to expire this week.
