The US military has carried out an operation in Haiti to airlift non-essential embassy personnel from the country and added US forces to bolster embassy security, after dozens of heavily armed gang fighters tried to seize the political quarter of its capital, Port-au-Prince.
The German foreign ministry meanwhile said its ambassador joined other EU representatives in leaving for the Dominican Republic on Sunday.
Haiti’s gangs began an offensive to topple the government on 29 February, storming and ransacking police stations, prisons and hospitals and laying siege to strategic locations, including the port and airport.
The prime minister, Ariel Henry, who was out of the country when the rebellion began, has found himself stranded in Puerto Rico, with one US official warning last week that his unpopular government could fall “at any time”.
The gang insurrection intensified late on Friday as dozens of criminals converged on Champ de Mars, a palm-dotted downtown area of Port-au-Prince that is home to government ministries, embassies, consulates, banks and hotels, as well as Haiti’s supreme court and official presidential residence.
Gang members reportedly torched the interior ministry, which was built after the 2010 earthquake that destroyed much of the capital, and opened fire on the presidential palace before being pushed back by troops.
“If the Champ de Mars falls … it’s the end,” one police officer warned in an interview with the AyiboPost news website.
Is the feared gang boss ‘Barbecue’ now the most powerful man in Haiti?Read more
The newspaper Le Nouvelliste said the gangs had launched a “systematic operation” to drive police from the strategic heart of Port-au-Prince. “Downtown Port-au-Prince has fallen; there is no doubt about it any more,” the newspaper reported on Saturday morning alongside a photograph of a burnt-out police station.
Lionel Lazarre, the head of the national union of Haitian police officers, told the AyiboPost his colleagues were struggling to withstand the onslaught. “The police are on their knees,” he said.
Police appeared to still control the Champ de Mars area on Sunday, but foreign governments have urged their citizens to leave Haiti amid fears that Henry’s embattled administration could be days or even hours from collapse.
On Sunday, the Miami Herald said US marines had been flown into Port-au-Prince to reinforce embassy security and evacuate non-essential staff. US defence officials told the newspaper that the middle-of-the-night operation had been conducted via helicopter at the request of the state department.
A German foreign ministry spokesman told AFP that “due to the very tense security situation in Haiti, the German ambassador and the permanent representative in Port-au-Prince left for the Dominican Republic today together with representatives from the EU delegation”, adding that they would work from there “until further notice”.
Haiti’s security situation has progressively…
2024-03-11 03:48:41
Post from port-au-prince” target=”_blank” style=”color:blue” rel=”noopener”>www.theguardian.com
