gangs turn Port-au-Prince into their “battlefield”

by time news

Los gang clashes They have paralyzed and stained with blood a sector of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, whose population suffers from unbridled inflation and critical fuel shortages that complicate crucial humanitarian aid.

Since last Friday, bursts of firearms are heard throughout the day in Cité Soleilan impoverished and densely populated neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, where two rival factions clash while police, short on staff and equipment, stand by.

Only in the last week the clashes have left at least 89 dead, 16 disappeared and 74 wounded by bullets or knives, according to the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights.

In the slums that have sprung up there over the last four decades, thousands of families have no choice but to shelter in their homeswithout being able to stock up on food or water.

Police walk past a roadblock in Port-au-Prince. AP Photo

Death

Some residents fall victim to stray bullets even inside their precarious sheet metal homes, but ambulances are not allowed to circulate freely in the area to help the wounded.

“We call on all belligerents to allow the passage of aid to Brooklyn”area of ​​Cité Soleil where the violence is concentrated, “and to spare the lives of civilians,” asked the head of the local mission of Doctors Without Borders, Mumuza Muhindo, on Wednesday.

The NGO, hampered in its operations to evacuate victims, cares for an average of 15 injured people a day since Fridayin known hospital cerca of Cité Soleil.

“Along the only road that leads to Brooklyn, we have found decomposing or burned bodies,” Muhindo added.

Tires burned in the Haitian capital, in the middle of a protest.  Reuters photo

Tires burned in the Haitian capital, in the middle of a protest. Reuters photo

“It could be people killed in the clashes or trying to escape who were killed. It’s a real battlefield.”

These deadly clashes between gangs affect activities throughout the capital, as in Cité Soleil is the oil terminal that feeds Port-au-Prince and northern Haiti.

Not a drop of gasoline It is filled at service stations in the capital, which has triggered fuel prices on the black market.

Motorcycle taxi drivers angry at this situation erected several barricades on the main roads of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday.

It was only possible to make short motorcycle trips within the neighborhoods, AFP journalists were able to verify.

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the capital struggled to organize their daily activities, themselves hampered by the risk of kidnapping.

For more than two years, the gangs multiplied the kidnappings in the citytargeting people from all socioeconomic backgrounds and any nationality.

Fuel smuggling in Port-au-Prince.  AP Photo

Fuel smuggling in Port-au-Prince. AP Photo

violence and kidnappings

Enjoying widespread impunity, criminal gangs have intensified their activities in recent weeks: at least 155 kidnappings were recorded in June compared to May, which totaled at least 118, the Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research said in its latest report published on Wednesday.

Many Haitians flee to the Dominican Republic or the United States. Others, without financial means or visas, risk their lives by boarding makeshift boats in the hope of reaching Florida.

While so many more are stranded on the Cuban or Bahamian coasts or are detained at sea by the US Coast Guard.

More than 1,200 migrants in an irregular situation were returned to Haiti only in June, statistics from the national migration office show.

And when you return, they find it difficult to survivetaking informal jobs in this country where annual inflation broke the 20% barrier three years ago.

Economists warn that this rate may exceed 30% at the end of this year due to the impact of the war in Ukraine on the world economy.

“We note a significant increase in hunger in the capital and the south of the country, with Port-au-Prince being the hardest hit,” Jean-Martin Bauer, director of the World Food Program (WFP) in Haiti, said on Tuesday.

The UN agency uses air and sea routes to send aid to the south and north of the country, to avoid the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, in the hands of the gangs.

Near half of Haiti’s 11 million people are food insecureof which 1.3 million are facing a humanitarian emergency that precedes famine, according to the WFP classification.

AFP agency

PB

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