2023-10-04 07:14:53
In Haiti, a thousand soldiers will come to support a police force completely overwhelmed by criminal gangs. The UN Security Council approved Monday evening the deployment on the island of a multinational force led by Kenya. Exceptional reporting in Port-au-Prince.
Haiti descended into chaos after the assassination of its president Jovenel Moïse two years ago. Nearly 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, escapes state control. According to the UN, violence by armed gangs has caused more than 2,400 victims since the start of the year.
The Carrefour-Feuilles district, a stone’s throw from the center of Port-au-Prince, has been transformed into a war zone.
>> Read more: Multinational mission led by Kenya will support fight against gangs in Haiti
On the one hand, there are those whom the population calls “bandits”, on the other the Haitian police, poorly equipped and understaffed. And in the middle, trapped residents. “It’s been shooting for twenty-two days, it’s unbearable,” testifies a man who decided to stay in his neighborhood, despite the danger, Tuesday in the RTS program Tout un monde.
But others, like Yolanda, aged around fifty, resigned themselves to fleeing as the fighting grew closer. She trudges forward, a suitcase on her head, through the streets of the neighborhood. “They are setting houses on fire and killing people. They don’t stop shooting. The smoke over there is houses and schools that they are burning down. They are burning everything, even the people. Children, like adults. Now we have nowhere to go. We all live on the streets, we sleep outside in the rain.”
“I begged them to stop”
Gangs use all means to spread terror, including rape. Samantha, 43 years old and mother of two children, was raped by four men while leaving the market. She was accused of being part of a rival gang. “I begged them to stop. Instead, they insulted me and told me they would go through with it. They are worse than monsters.”
And to continue: “File a complaint? It’s no use. They won’t do anything for me. To be able to file a complaint, there would have to be justice. But there is no justice. I keep my suffering and my scar for me.”
Samantha is formal. The four men who raped her are part of the G9, a mafia federation of nine of the most powerful gangs in Port-au-Prince. Their leader is a former police officer Jimmy Chérizier, alias Barbecue. “We are fighting for change in this country,” he says. Confronted with Samantha’s story, he denies it. “What atrocities are you talking about? […] In the G9 zones, I’m not going to say it’s impossible. But it is very difficult for a member of the G9 to rape a woman without suffering consequences. The rest of us don’t tolerate this.”
The bandits, “children”
The heavily armed gangs who share control of Port-au-Prince have made kidnapping a real industry. More than 1,400 kidnappings have been recorded since the start of the year.
Doctor Louis Gérald Gilles spent seven days in the hands of an armed group before being released in exchange for the payment of a ransom. “They are children, young people… They talk about football, about fun, about women, about their children,” he says. “They realize that their life expectancy is very short, they know very well that they are going to be killed. They are also aware that they are harming society. They are born into pain.”
Faced with gang violence, exasperated Haitians take justice into their own hands. Lynchings of men suspected of being part of armed groups are increasing. To put an end to this spiral of violence, the United Nations approved the sending of a multinational force. The Haitian government welcomes this decision as a “ray of hope”, but it is far from unanimous among the Haitian population, who fear that these soldiers will transform into an occupying force.
>> Also listen to the subject in La Matinale: International force of the UN Security Council in Haiti, a mission which promises to be perilous / La Matinale / 1 min. / today at 06:32
Omar Ouahmane/vajo
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