Hīkoi:peaceful protest throughout the nine-days comes to an end, Roads: concrete or asphalt?, Diver killed in Chatham Islands shark attack and Wayne Brown looking to scrap CCOs.
Police and civilian self-defence groups killed 28 alleged gang members in Port-au-Prince during an overnight operation.
Gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherisier called for the transitional Government’s resignation, prompting further attacks.
Well-armed gangs control 80% of the city, despite a UN-backed, Kenyan-led international force’s presence.
Police and civilian self-defence groups killed 28 alleged gang members in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince in an overnight operation, authorities said on Tuesday, as the Government seeks to regain some control of the city.
But gang members pressed on with attacks on some districts of the violent, chaoticcity, after one of their leaders called late Monday for the transitional Government to step down.
Reminiscent of previous bloody vigilante reprisals against the country’s gangs, an AFP photographer saw people burning the bodies of the alleged gang members in the street, with tyres piled atop of them and set alight.
Officers stopped a truck they said was carrying gang members in the wealthy suburb of Petion-Ville at 2am on Tuesday, while a bus ferrying gang members was intercepted in the city centre, Haitian National Police spokesman Lionel Lazarre told AFP.
Bodies of alleged gang members burn in the street in Petion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, November 19, 2024. Photo / AFP
Police opened fire, killing 10, and then chased down those who fled with the help of self-defence groups, formed by residents opposed to the gangs and their violent rule over swathes of the country.
Last year, in a gruesome chapter in the city’s ongoing struggle against armed groups, a dozen alleged gang members were stoned and burned alive by residents in Port-au-Prince.
Well-armed gangs control some 80% of the city, routinely targeting civilians despite a UN-backed, Kenyan-led international force that has been deployed to help the outgunned police.
Members of the Armed Forces of Haiti patrol in Petion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 19, 2024. Photo / AFP
Political turmoil
The Haitian capital has seen renewed fighting in the last week from Viv Ansanm, an alliance of gangs that in February helped oust then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Streets were almost deserted on Tuesday after police and residents erected barricades in several neighbourhoods, as the United Nations warned gangs were reported to be gaining ground in the city.
Viv Ansanm spokesman Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherisier, a notorious gang leader, has called for the resignation of the transitional Government currently leading the country.
“The Viv Ansanm coalition will use all its means to achieve the departure of the CPT,” Cherisier said Monday night, using the acronym for the Transitional Presidential Council.
Residents evacuate the Delmas 24 neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 19, 2024. Photo / AFP
Hours later the coalition launched attacks on several areas of the capital, including Petion-Ville, Bourdon and Canape Vert.
And the council itself – made up of unelected officials tasked with the difficult mandate of leading the country to its first elections since 2016 – is facing its own internal disarray.
Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime was sworn in last week to replace outgoing premier Garry Conille, who was appointed in May but became embroiled in a power struggle with the council.
Vigilante killings
Meanwhile, violence continues to shake the country.
According to a UN report last month, more than 1200 people in Haiti were killed from July to September.
Most of the deaths – 47% – were attributed to gangs, but 45% were the result of law enforcement operations, including 106 extrajudicial “executions”.
Eight per cent of the deaths were civilian-led, including by self-defence groups, known as the “Bwa Kale” movement.
Victims were presumed gang members but also people “accused of common crimes” including theft.
More than 20,000 people had been displaced across Port-au-Prince in just four days last week, the UN’s International Organisation for Migration warned over the weekend.
The country lost major links to the rest of the world last week when the United States banned all civilian flights to the country for a month, after three jetliners approaching or departing Port-au-Prince were hit by gunfire.
