PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Police on Monday clashed with gunmen making an attempt to take over one of many few communities in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, that’s not managed by gangs.
Solino has been underneath assault since Thursday, with residents calling radio stations pleading for assist as they fled their properties. Officers seized management of a number of areas as they hold pursuing gang members, Haiti’s Nationwide Police mentioned in an announcement late Sunday.
In a video posted on social media, gang members hoisted computerized weapons within the air and cheered as they claimed management over components of Solino, warning that every one those that will not be a part of a gang coalition generally known as “Viv Ansanm” will probably be “burned to ashes.”
Prime Minister Garry Conille held an emergency assembly Monday to speak in regards to the assaults in Solino and different neighborhoods. He introduced the fast recall of a number of hundred cops and troopers from elite items defending high-ranking officers in order that they may very well be redeployed to neighborhoods underneath assault.
“We won’t cede strategic neighborhoods akin to Solino and different just lately liberated areas. The safety of our residents is non-negotiable,” he wrote on social platform X.
The gang coalition has raided different neighborhoods, together with Tabarre 27, with the assaults forcing greater than 4,200 folks to flee, in line with a report the U.N.’s Worldwide Group for Migration launched Monday.
Greater than 60% of these left homeless moved into already crowded makeshift shelters internet hosting others who misplaced their properties lately to gang violence. Others sought refuge at a college, a church and a well being middle, in line with the report.
Gangs that management 80% of Port-au-Prince even have threatened journalists overlaying the newest assaults, calling them out by identify and ordering that they be killed.
Viv Ansanm, which suggests “Residing Collectively,” shaped in September 2023, making a coalition between two massive gang federations that have been enemies. It was accountable for launching large-scale assaults on important authorities infrastructure beginning in February, ultimately resulting in the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
The coalition additionally has unified to combat a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenyan police to quell gang violence in Haiti that started earlier this yr.
After the coalition was shaped, armed clashes between gangs fell by 78% from March to August, in contrast with the earlier six months, in line with a report printed this month by ACLED, a U.S. nonprofit that collects information on violent conflicts worldwide.
“The consolidation of the Viv Ansanm alliance has enabled gangs to focus their assets on prison actions and confrontations with safety forces, slightly than participating in infighting,” it mentioned.
The report additionally warned that “regardless of the risky relationships amongst gang members, Viv Ansanm is more likely to endure so long as it faces the shared risk of a world safety drive.”
