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Haiti prepares for influx of foreign forces as locals flee violence

1 of 68Attribution: AP
By Richard Wood , Lara Pearce, Derek Rose
May 15, 2024 - 1:30AM
Warning: This article contains graphic and distressing content

Members of the Haitian armed forces patrol the streets in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, on May 11.

Haiti is preparing for the long-anticipated arrival of a multinational security mission, headed by 1000 armed police officers from Kenya and backed by pledges of aid by the United States and Europe.

It is hoped their arrival will restore stability to the beleaguered nation, which is at risk of becoming a failed state.

Topics:
World
Haiti
Violence
Prison
Riot
Politics

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A US military cargo plane lands at Toussaint Louverture airport in Port-au-Prince on May 11.

Scores of US military planes have been landing at the shuttered airport in Port-au-Prince in recent weeks, carrying civilian contractors, life-saving supplies, building materials and heavy equipment ahead of the anticipated arrival of the multinational mission.


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The Caribbean nation has been in turmoil since February, when gang warfare spiraled with a series of coordinated attacks - including one in March which saw the nation's two largest prisons stormed and more than 4,000 inmates released.

Pictured is a police officer sitting inside his vehicle with the windscreen peppered with bullet holes.

With armed gangs now controlling around 80 per cent of the capital, the police have largely been rendered ineffectual and unable to stem the spiraling violence.


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Elections have not been held in Haiti since 2016.

The country's last president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in 2021, and the current prime minister and acting president, Ariel Henry, is stuck in Puerto Rico, unable to fly back to Haiti.


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Students dismissed from school walk past a makeshift barricade constructed from the shell of a burnt-out vehicle and weighed down with tyres, in the Canapé Vert area of Haiti's capital on May 14.

Neighbourhoods have become war zones in Port-au-Prince, with even previously protected and affluent communities exposed to horrific violence.


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Girls holding hands are led past a burnt car blocking the street as they evacuate the Delmas 22 neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince on May 2.

The bloodshed has prompted tens of thousands of Haitians to flee to the rural south or across the border to the Dominican Republic, where they are being met with hostility and the threat of deportation.


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A motorcycle taxi carries a coffin for a family who live in the Kenscoff community, in the foothills of the Chaîne de la Selle mountain range, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

At least 2,500 people have died or been injured in gang violence in Haiti between January and March this year, according to United Nations estimates - a figure that has continued to surge in more recent months.


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April 3

More than 53,000 people fled Haiti's capital in less than three weeks in April - the vast majority to escape unrelenting gang violence, according to a United Nations report.

More than 60 per cent are headed to Haiti's rural southern region, which worries UN officials because it lacks the necessary infrastructure to cope with the influx.

Other Haitians fleeing the violence arrived in Mexico from where they crossed  into the United States for their appointment with officials to seek asylum.


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The southern region already hosts more than 116,000 Haitians who previously left Port-au-Prince.

Most Haitians leaving the capital have been crowding into buses, risking travel through gang-controlled territory where gang rapes have been reported and gunmen have been known to open fire on public transport.


10 of 68Attribution: AP
More than 1500 people have been reported killed up, and another 17,000 have been left homeless, according to the UN.

Haitians prayed for peace and an end to the bloodshed as thousands packed churches across the nation over the Easter holiday.


11 of 68Attribution: Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters/File via CNN Newsource
A fresh outbreak of gang violence has erupted in Haiti after the government extended a long-running State of Emergency for another week.

Here, a man walks past a burned-down barricade. Many barricades have been set up by the armed gangs who have taken over around 80 per cent of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince.

Thousands of residents are being held captive in their own communities while others flee.


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The Haitian government decreed the state of emergency would be extended to April 3 in the country's West Region and the capital Port-au-Prince.

A 72-hour curfew initially introduced on March 5 after armed gangs stormed two of the country's largest prisons has been extended numerous times, but has done little to quell the growing unrest.


13 of 68Attribution: Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters via CNN Newsource
In one attack, intruders broke into a major port terminal, Caribbean Port Services (CPS), a major player in Haiti's food import supply chain.

They headed to the terminal's gated warehouse area that houses many containers, the sources said.

Video of the port showed hundreds of people on the streets around the facility and what appeared to be dozens of people breaking into the gated warehouse.

Exclusive satellite imagery from Airbus seen by CNN showed people massing outside of the area and crowds moving in through an opening to the street.


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A man transports a coffin using a cart in Port-au-Prince on March 22.

Dead bodies have been piling up on the streets, as the bloody war between authorities and powerful armed gangs reaches new heights.

Images too graphic to show depict residents walking past the charred bodies of gang members who were killed by police and then set on fire by residents.


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People look for salvageable items at a car mechanic shop that was set on fire during gang violence in Port-au-Prince on March 25.


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The powerful gangs have been executing highly coordinated attacks on law enforcement and state institutions, in what G9 gang coalition leader Jimmy Cherizier has described as an attempt to overthrow Prime Minister Ariel Henry's government.

Armed groups have burned down police stations and released thousands of inmates from two prisons.

Cherizier has warned of "a civil war that will end in genocide" if the prime minister does not step down, Reuters reported on March 26.


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The chaos has forced tens of thousands of Haitians to flee their homes in the past few days, adding to the more than 300,000 already displaced by gang violence.

Pictured are people, including many Haitians, making their way up a ramp leaving Mexico and crossing into the United States in an attempt to seek asylum on March 13.

The gang violence wracking Haiti has reverberated among millions who left Haiti for Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the United States. Many feel helpless when they call terrified family members who can't leave the island nation because airports are closed.


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Many nations have been working to rapidly extricate their citizens from Haiti as law and order in the Caribbean nation disintegrates.

Here, people evacuated from Haiti by a US helicopter arrive in the Dominican Republic on March 22.


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More than 33,000 people have fled Haiti's capital in nearly two weeks amid gang violence, according to a new report from the UN's International Organization for Migration.


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A man looks for salvageable items at a car mechanic shop that was set fire during gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 25.


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The violence is affecting the distribution of essential supplies by aid organisations.

The World Food Programme suspended its maritime transport services in Port-au-Prince from distributing aid across Haiti due to the instability.