Dozens of people have died in four days of gang battles in a violent neighborhood of Haiti’s capital, the latest eruption of bloodshed in a wave of increasing violence sweeping the country, local officials said on Tuesday.
Jean Hislain Frederick, deputy mayor in Cite Soleil district of Port-au-Prince, said that the fighting erupted on Friday in a clash between members of two rival gangs, and that at least 50 people had died and more than 50 were wounded.
The violence began just a day after the first anniversary of the assassination of former Haitian president Jovenel Moise. Since Moise was killed, violence has soared in Haiti as gangs battle over territory, and the government has struggled to crack down.
Photo: AP
The aid group Doctors Without Borders said that thousands of people were trapped in Cite Soleil without drinking water, food and medical care.
The organization called on other humanitarian groups for help and it urged the gangs “to spare civilians.”
In a news release, it said three of its members were treating wounded people in an area of Cite Soleil called Brooklyn.
“Along the only road into Brooklyn, we have encountered corpses that are decomposing or being burned,” Mumuza Muhindo, Doctors Without Borders head of mission in Haiti, said in the statement. “They could be people killed during the clashes or people trying to leave who were shot — it is a real battlefield. It is not possible to estimate how many people have been killed.”
Local officials said the fighting involved the rival gangs known as G9 and G-Pep.
The G9 is a gang coalition also known as G9 Family and Allies, led by former police officer Jimmy Cherizier.
Known as “Barbecue,” Cherizier has been linked in the past to massacres, and his coalition is believed to have allied with Moise’s right-wing party.
After Moise was killed, he called the crime “cowardly and villainous.”
G-Pep is a gang that arose in Cite Soleil, although it is allied with other armed groups from around Haiti’s capital.
The World Food Program (WFP) on Tuesday said that hunger is set to rise in Haiti, which is seeing 26 percent inflation, high costs of food and fuel, and deteriorating security — with insecurity in and around Port-au-Prince drastically worsening since early May.
WFP country director Jean-Martin Bauer told UN correspondents in a video news conference that 1.3 million Haitians in the northwest and parts of the south “are one step away from famine.”
Because the criminal groups block roads and attack trucks carrying humanitarian aid, WFP is using ferries and aircraft to deliver desperately needed food, he said.
Bauer said WFP needs US$39 million for its operations in Haiti for the next six months, and he urged donors not to let the situation in the country “go from bad to worse.”
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
RSS