Port-au-Prince, August 27 (RHC)-- In recent weeks, the Carrefour-Feuille neighborhood in the southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, has been under constant harassment by gangs resulting in thousands of residents being forced to flee their homes in the face of lax authorities.
The night of August 24-25 was a nightmare for the residents of Carrefour-Feuilles after another attack by armed gangs who broke into several areas of the neighborhood. Because of this new onslaught, hundreds of residents fled, including refugees displaced in the Carrefour-Feuilles high school who had to leave the area to live in the premises of the National School of the Republic of Brazil.
In protest, residents of the neighborhood under siege by gangs walked armed with knives along the main roads in the area to demand the rapid intervention of the Haitian National Police (HNP). A crowd gathered in front of the local headquarters of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security on Charles Sumner Avenue, hurled invectives against Minister Emmelie Prophet Milcé, considered incompetent and insensitive.
Intense gunfire from police guarding the area around the building dispersed the demonstrators. On the Champs de Mars, rallies in front of the headquarters of the Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of Order (UDMO) forced the police to deploy maneuvers to limit the invasion of the premises of this unit.
Subsequently, the citizens of Carrefour-Feuilles organized a sit-in in front of the base of the Western Departmental Directorate of the HNP. The demonstrators expressed their anger at the inaction of the police authorities in the face of the Grand-Ravine criminal group, the largest gang operating in the Caribbean country, which is gaining ground, and alerted the Government to the seriousness of the situation.
In this regard, the political platform Chemin Délivrance Ayiti indicated that after 25 months of "desperate" leadership and "patented failures" of the Government led by Prime Minister Ariel Henry, the population has experienced extreme atrocities without counting that all indicators are in the red.
To resolve the situation, i.e. to return to the normal functioning of the country, it is necessary, according to the political structure, "to re-establish the sovereign institutions of the State, which are capable of responding to their royalty and their mission towards the population".
According to experts, since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, gangs have taken control of up to 80% of Port-au-Prince, killing, raping and spreading terror in communities that previously suffered from endemic poverty.
