On March 4, 2024, heavily armed gangs tried to seize control of Haiti’s main international airport exchanging gunfire with the police and soldiers in the latest attack on key government sites in an explosion of violence that includes a mass escape from the country’s two biggest prisons.
The Toussaint Louverture Airport was closed when the attack took place with no planes operating and passengers on site.
International Journalists saw an armoured truck on the tarmac shooting at gangs to try and prevent them from entering airport grounds as scores of employees and other workers fled from whizzing bullets. It wasn’t clear as of late of March 4, 2024 whether the attack, which was the biggest one in Haiti’s history involving the airport, was successful.
Last week, the airport was briefly struck with bullets amid ongoing gang attacks, but the gangs did not enter the airport, nor seize control of it. The attack occurred just hours after authorities in Haiti ordered a night time curfew following violence in which armed gang members overran the two biggest prisons and all imprisoned inmates were released over weekend.
“The Secretary General is deeply concerned by the rapid deuterating situation in Port-au-Prince, where armed gangs have intensified attacks on critical infrastructure over the weekend, said the UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
A 72-hour state of emergency began a day before the attack took place, i.e., March 3, 2024. The police were ordered to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce curfew and apprehend all offenders, said a statement from Finance Minister Patrick Boivert, the acting Prime Minister.
The gangs already were estimated to control up to 80 percent Port-au-Prince, the capital. They are increasingly coordinating their actions and choosing once unthinkable targets like the Central Bank.
The Prime Minister Ariel Henry travelled to Kenya last week to salvage support for a United Nations backed security force to help stabilise Haiti in its conflict with increasingly powerful criminal organisations.
Dujarric said that the Secretary General stressed the need for urgent action, especially in providing financial support for the mission, “to address the pressing security requirements of the Haitian people and prevent the country from plunging further into chaos.”
The Haiti National Police has roughly 9000 officers to provide security for more than 11 million people, according to the United Nations. They are routinely outnumbered and outgunned. The deadly weekend marked a new low in Haiti’s downward spiral of violence. At least nine people have been killed since February 29, 2024.
Four among the deceased were police officers as gangs stepped up coordinated attacks on state institutions in Port-au-Prince, including the international airport and the national soccer stadium. But the attacks on the National Penitentiary on March 2, 2024, shocked Haitians. All but 98 of the 3,798 inmates escaped, according to the Office of Citizen Protection.
Meanwhile, at the Croix-des-Bouquets prison, 1033 escaped, including 298 convicts. The office said on March 4, 2024 that it was seriously concerned about the safety of judges, prosecutors, victims, attorneys and others following the mass escape. It added that it deplored and condemned the policy of nonchalance demonstrated by the government officials amid the attacks.
Following the raid at the penitentiary, three bodies with gunshot wounds lay at the prison entrance on March 3, 2024. In another neighbourhood, the bloodied corpses of the two men with their hands behind the backs lay face down as residents walked past roadblocks set up with burning tires.
Among the dozen people who chose to remain in the prison are eighteen former Colombian soldiers accused of working as mercenaries in the July 2021 assassination of the Haitian President Jovenel Moise.
“Please, please, help us, one of the men Francisco Uribe said in a message widely shared on social media. “They are massacring people indiscriminately inside the cells. Colombian foreign ministry has called on Haiti to provide special protection for the men.
A second Port-au-Prince prison containing around 1,400 inmates was also overrun. Gunfire was heard and reported in several neighbourhoods in the capital. Internet services for many residents was down on March 3, 2024 as the country’s top mobile network said that one fibre-optic cable was slashed during the rampage.
After gangs opened fire at Haiti’s international airport last week, the US Embassy said it was halting all official travel to the country. On the night of March 3, 2024, it urged all American citizens to depart as fast as possible.
The Joe Biden administration, which has refused to commit troops to any multinational force for Haiti, while offering financial and logistical support said it was monitoring the rapidly deteoreating situation with grave concerns.
The surge in attacks follows violent protests that turned more deadlier in recent days as the PM went to Kenya seeking to move ahead on the United Nations backed security mission to be led by the East African country.
Henry took over as the Prime minister following Moise assassination and has postponed plans to hold parliamentary and presidential elections, which have not happened in a decade. Jimmy Cherizier, a former elite police officer, known as Barbecue who now runs a gang federation has claimed responsibility for the surge in attacks.
The main goal is to capture Haiti police chief and government ministers and prevent Henry’s return. The prime minister has shrugged of all calls for him to resign and didn’t comment when asked if he felt it was safe to come home.
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