2024-03-19 07:15:00
A road in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti/Evelio Contreras/CNN via CNN Newsource
2024.03.19 Tue posted at 16:15 JST
PORT-AU-PRINCE (CNN) The wide roads that pass by the international airport in Port-au-Prince, the capital of the Caribbean island nation of Haiti, have been shrouded in post-apocalyptic silence lately. Places that were once bustling with cars and people are now just piles of smoldering garbage billowing with smoke and a bitter smell in the air.
An armored police vehicle is parked nearby, and the few police officers on duty cover their faces with balaclavas. This street looks almost abandoned, as if following a disaster. It’s an experience that people living in Port-au-Prince know better than anyone else. But this time, leaving the city is not an option. The airport is under siege by gangsters and is forced to shut down.
Earlier this month, gangs launched an unprecedented coordinated attack on the last remaining remnants of Haiti’s statehood, including airports, police stations, government buildings and prisons. Years of gang control and popular unrest culminated in gang attacks that forced Prime Minister Henry Henry to resign last week. It was a surprising surrender, but it proved futile in restoring peace.
Gangs in Port-au-Prince continue to disrupt food, fuel and water supplies to the city. The National Police, perhaps the last functioning state, is fighting to take back the city one block at a time. The very life of the city appears to be in decline, as intensive urban warfare strips away basic human bonds.
Businesses and schools remain closed, and social infrastructure is beginning to fray. Many residents are afraid to leave their homes and are isolated. Some turn to vigilantism. Fear, distrust, and anger are rampant, and death is present in everyone’s hearts.
In a Port-au-Prince neighborhood on the 18th, a crowd arrested a man on suspicion of belonging to a nearby gang. The man was forced to walk to a cemetery, then killed and his body burned in the street. A source in the local community told CNN.
Footage seen by CNN showed a smoking corpse on the road in front of a shuttered store, with thick black soot spreading all over it. Local security sources said the bodies of hundreds of criminal suspects killed by residents were disposed of by fire.
Gangs have plagued Port-au-Prince residents for years. Their influence has expanded dramatically in recent years, and the United Nations estimates that 80% of the city is now under gang control. Seeing their cities shrink, many Haitians have formed a vigilante movement known as Bouwa Carre.
In these movements, communities formed defense committees and even shared fortifications, surveillance systems, checkpoints, and patrols.
But the line between self-defense and mob justice can be easily crossed. Vigilante groups have lynched hundreds of people suspected of gang membership or “common crimes,” according to an October 2023 United Nations report.
One of the vigilantes spoke to CNN from a car-filled lot next to the church. The vigilante group, whose members spoke on condition of anonymity due to safety concerns, said they had repeatedly repelled gang attempts to take control of the area.
Vigilante members say the gang’s method is to take over areas where major companies are located and force them to pay while they are under control.
“We are constantly receiving threats. Gangs will attack us and destroy our neighbourhoods. So we close the streets and the police will search. There will be no civilians involved in searching the vehicles.”
Sources say those detained by these vigilante groups are often accused of being gang spies.
Sources said the gang would send spies on motorbikes to see if there were barricades on the roads and how many people were there. If the vigilante group encounters a suspicious person, they will interview them and check their cellphones. If there is a message from the gang, the vigilante group will take this person into custody.
“This is not a war,” the source stressed, saying such areas were only defending themselves, but acknowledged there was no judicial process for them.
Just a five-minute drive away, another community is desperately trying to come together in even more dire circumstances. It is one of dozens of refugee camps in the city, home to tens of thousands of civilians forced from their homes by violence and arson.
Marie Maurice, 56, watched as the gang’s territory grew closer and closer. When she was alerted to an impending gang attack on February 29, Maurice wasted no time. Maurice left behind all her belongings and evacuated for nearly an hour on foot to the public school that served as her evacuation center.
Over the next three weeks, the children at the shelter flew kites made from discarded foil and plastic, drove toy cars made from empty cans, placed bottle caps in the driver’s seats, and held pebbles as passengers. I’m riding it.
Although the adults act as if everything is normal, they feel a sense of emptiness. Adults have elected leaders to work with local police to ask aid groups to bring food and water, but with roads blocked across the city, little aid has actually reached them.
Maurice tries to keep his family’s place in the corner of a crowded space clean, wiping the floor with water that takes 20 minutes to buy. But none of Maurice’s family has enough to eat, and they don’t even have the space to cook. Maurice said she counts even a piece of candy as a meal.
Some residents of refugee camps said that in addition to the daily challenges of survival, they were also finding themselves unwelcome and that relations with their neighbors were deteriorating. There have also been clashes with local residents who fear the influx of outsiders will attract the attention of gangs and are concerned regarding the movement of displaced people.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) predicts the impact of dwindling resources and escalating violence, repeating that a worsening atmosphere of mistrust in Haiti will fray traditional safety nets and leave people with nowhere to go. I’m warning you.
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