Haiti: US evacuates embassy staff amid gang violence
The United States has announced the evacuation of non-essential embassy personnel from Haiti amid escalating gang violence in the country.
Security measures at the U.S. mission in Port-au-Prince have been intensified in response to recent attacks by gangs targeting the airport, police stations, and prisons.
The gangs are demanding the removal of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
A state of emergency, initially declared for three days, has been extended for a month due to the heightened violence.
The decision to evacuate additional embassy staff was prompted by increased gang activity in the vicinity of U.S. embassy compounds and the airport, according to a statement posted on social media by the embassy. Despite the evacuation, the embassy will remain operational.
Reports suggest that the evacuation operation, carried out in the early hours of the morning, involved helicopter transport, as described by nearby residents who heard aircraft activity overhead.
Germany’s ambassador to Haiti, along with other EU representatives, relocated to the Dominican Republic on Sunday, as confirmed by the German foreign ministry in response to the deteriorating situation in Haiti.
The situation in Haiti has further worsened, with the main port suspending operations on Thursday due to acts of sabotage and vandalism. Gangs intensified their attacks following Prime Minister Henry’s departure for a regional summit last week. In a related incident, Mr. Henry attempted to return to Port-au-Prince on Tuesday but ended up in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico instead.
He could not land in the Haitian capital because its international airport was closed as soldiers repelled attempts by gunmen to seize it.
Civil aviation authorities in the neighboring Dominican Republic also turned the prime minister’s plane away, saying that they had not been provided with the necessary flight plan.
Mr Henry has not given any public statements since he visited Kenya, where he met President William Ruto to salvage a deal for the East African country to lead a multi-national force to help restore order in Haiti.
The two leaders signed a reciprocal agreement which paves the way for 2,000 Kenyan police officers to be sent to Haiti but a Kenyan opposition politician says he will challenge the deal in court.
On Saturday, the US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with the Kenyan president about the Haiti crisis and the two men underscored their commitment to a multinational security mission to restore order.
Gangs in Port-au-Prince have taken advantage of the prime minister’s absence to unleash a series of coordinated attacks.
Among their targets was the airport – which they wanted to control to prevent Mr Henry from flying back in – and two prisons, from which they freed thousands of inmates.
At least six police officers have been killed while the National Police Academy has been destroyed.
The bodies of several prisoners were also left lying on the streets after the storming of the national penitentiary.
The violence has caused Haiti’s humanitarian crisis to deteriorate even further.
The gangs have not said what their aim is beyond the ouster of Mr Henry.
Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, a former police officer who leads an alliance of gangs called G9, has threatened that if Mr Henry does not step down there will be a “civil war” which he said could end in “genocide”.
The unrest has seen 362,000 Haitians internally displaced – more than half of them children, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says.
“Haitians are unable to lead a decent life. They are living in fear, and every day, every hour this situation carries on, the trauma gets worse,” Philippe Branchat, IOM’s chief in Haiti, said in a statement.
“People living in the capital are locked in, they have nowhere to go,” he said. “Armed groups and danger surround the capital. It is a city under siege.”
The aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres estimates that at least 2,300 people were killed in the violence in 2023 in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Cite Soleil alone, home to 9% of the capital’s population.
In other news, five people who were kidnapped in Haiti last month, including four missionaries, have been freed from captivity, their Catholic congregation said Sunday.
The missionaries were abducted in Port-au-Prince, where kidnappings for ransom are commonplace.
