Nearly 90 dead in Haiti gang violence as country slides into chaos

A week of gang violence in Haiti’s capital has claimed at least 89 lives, a rights group said Wednesday, while rising prices, fuel shortages and gang wars are accelerating a brutal downward spiral in the security situation in Port-au-Prince.

The riots broke out on July 7 between two rival factions in Cite Soleil, an impoverished and densely populated area of ​​Port-au-Prince.

As gunfire rang out in the slums for nearly a week, undermanned and ill-equipped police failed to intervene while international humanitarian organizations struggled to deliver essential food and medical care to the victims.

Thousands of families living in the slums that have sprung up here over the past four decades have had no choice but to hide in their homes without fetching food or water – and the many tin houses have killed dozens of residents Victims to stray bullets.

“At least 89 people were killed and 16 others are missing,” the National Human Rights Defense Network said in a statement, adding that another 74 people suffered gunshot or knife wounds.

Mumuza Muhindo, head of MSF’s local mission, on Wednesday urged all combatants to allow paramedics safe access to Brooklyn, an area of ​​Cite Soleil hardest hit by the violence.

Despite the danger, Muhindo said his group has been operating on an average of 15 patients a day since last Friday.

He said his colleagues saw burned and rotting bodies along a street leading into the Brooklyn neighborhood, possibly either gang members killed in the clashes or people trying to flee.

“It’s a real battlefield,” Muhindo said. “It is impossible to estimate how many people were killed.”

Cite Soleil is home to an oil terminal that supplies the capital and all of northern Haiti, so the clashes have had a devastating impact on the region’s economy and people’s daily lives.

Petrol stations in Port-au-Prince have no petrol for sale, causing prices on the black market to skyrocket.

Outraged, motorcycle taxi drivers built barricades on some of the city’s main streets on Wednesday, and residents were only able to take short motorcycle rides within their neighborhoods, according to local AFP journalists.

This further complicates their already dangerous situation: in recent years, Haiti has experienced a spate of mass kidnappings, with gangs kidnapping people from all walks of life, including foreigners, off the streets.

Emboldened by police inaction, gangs have become increasingly brazen in recent weeks. At least 155 kidnappings took place in June, compared with 118 in May, according to a report by the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights released Wednesday.

The crushing poverty and widespread violence are causing many Haitians to flee to the Dominican Republic, which Haiti borders, or to the United States.

With no money and no visas, many of them risk their lives boarding makeshift boats in hopes of reaching Florida.

Many end up in Cuba or the Bahamas, or are stopped at sea by American authorities and taken home.

According to the government, more than 1,200 undocumented migrants were returned to Haiti in June alone.

If they return, they will have to face the poverty they were trying to escape and annual inflation at 20 percent, which economists warn could rise further to 30 percent due to the global impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“We are seeing 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, said on Tuesday.

Nearly half of Haiti’s 11 million people are already affected by food shortages, including 1.3 million who face a humanitarian emergency that precedes famine, the UN estimates.

But the violence is also hampering efforts to help them: WFP is already attempting to bypass areas of Port-au-Prince, attempting to bring aid to the south and north of the country by air and sea.