Port-au-Prince resumes activities after gang attacks: back to everyday life

The capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, resumes some daily activities this Tuesday, March 5, 2024, with the reactivation of transportation and businesses, hours after the gangs that took thousands of prisoners from two prisons tried to take over the airport.

On the streets of the city, paralyzed on Monday by the violence unleashed against the authorities over the weekend, long lines can be seen in front of shops, banks and gas stations, an AFP journalist reported.
The shots from the day before no longer sound in the capital, where schools and public administration offices remain closed and where residents have built barricades with stones and tree trunks to protect themselves.

On Monday afternoon, the Police and Army repulsed an attack on the Toussaint Louverture international airport by armed gangs that control entire areas of Haiti. The unrest around the facilities led international airlines to cancel all their flights to the capital.

A group of gang members attacked a police post near the airport and set it on fire. Since Thursday, several gangs have carried out coordinated attacks against strategic locations, including two prisons in the capital. The objective, according to them, is to overthrow the controversial Prime Minister Ariel Henry. The politician, in power since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, should have left office at the beginning of February, but is resisting calling elections.

This Tuesday, Henry remains missing. When the outbreak occurred he was in Kenya, where he signed an agreement to send police to Haiti, on an international mission supported by Washington and the UN. The US State Department said on Monday that Henry was returning to Haiti. But, according to local media Radio Télé Métronome, the prime minister could not return to his country due to the lack of security around the airport.

The Haitian Government decreed on Sunday a state of emergency in the Port-au-Prince region “for a renewable period of 72 hours”, as well as a curfew between 6:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. local on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Haiti, considered the poorest country in the Americas, faces a serious political, humanitarian and security crisis since Moïse’s assassination. According to the UN, more than 8,400 people were victims of gang violence last year, including dead, injured and kidnapped, “an increase of 122% compared to 2022.”