Six police officers were killed Wednesday in the north of Haiti during the attack on a police station by gang members, authorities said, a new act of violence at the origin of demonstrations Thursday in Port-au- Prince.
Civilians and police officers, exasperated, marched through the streets of the capital, erected barricades, tried to invest the offices of the disputed Prime Minister Ariel Henry and invaded the runway of Toussaint-Louverture international airport, noted a correspondent from AFP.
Executions
The demonstrators, however, failed to reach the diplomatic lounge where the head of government was, returning from a summit abroad. Air traffic was nevertheless disrupted, while schools closed their doors in Port-au-Prince.
Thursday, “bandits” attacked three times a police sub-station in Liancourt, a locality in the north of the Caribbean country, and “during the third attack”, armed men attacking “on all fronts” “have killed six of our officers,” police chief Jean Bruce Myrtil told local radio on Thursday morning.
Of the six police officers killed, four who were injured earlier in the day were “taken out” by gang members from the clinic where they were being treated “in order to execute them”, added the police chief.
14 police officers killed in January
The Director General of the National Police of Haiti, Frantz Elbé, has indicated that his forces are “in a state of maximum alert (…) from this Thursday, January 26”. The police had announced on their social networks the death of “six brave police officers”. A senior US diplomatic official, Brian Nichols, reacted on Twitter by saying “condemn gang violence”, and called for “calm” in Haiti.
Fourteen police officers have been killed by armed gangs since the beginning of the year, according to a count made by the National Union of Haitian Police Officers. Trade unionist Lionel Lazzare called on officials to adopt measures to protect officers.
Gang violence and humanitarian emergency have reached levels “not seen in decades” in Haiti, the UN was alarmed on Tuesday, insisting on the need to send an international force, a request on the table of the Council of security for three months, without result.