Tag Archives: Haiti

Haitians sheltering in tents grow impatient for aid after devastating quake

By Laura Gottesdiener

LES CAYES, Haiti (Reuters) – Haitians left homeless by a devastating earthquake that killed about 2,000 people voiced anger over a lack of government aid as they spent a fourth night in the open on Wednesday, many without clean water and food.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who flew to visit the worst-affected town of Les Cayes in southwest Haiti soon after Saturday’s quake of magnitude 7.2, had praised the dignity shown by survivors and promised a rapid escalation of aid.

But by late Tuesday, as storm clouds threatened a second night of heavy rain, residents of a mushrooming tent city in Les Cayes said help was scant.

“No one from the government has come here. Nothing has been done,” said Roosevelt Milford, a pastor who had visited radio and television stations in the area, pleading for airtime.

“We need help,” Milford said in a simple message delivered over the airwaves on behalf of the hundreds camping out in soggy fields since the quake destroyed their homes.

Nearby, displaced residents used machetes to shave down the edges of wooden poles to be staked into the ground to support makeshift tents.

Tropical Storm Grace, which ploughed across southern Haiti the previous night, had swept away many shelters and inundated the field, adding to the misery.

“We have the will to do everything but we don’t have the money or resources,” Milford said. “And we need to prepare for the rain coming tonight.”

He and others complained that they lacked even the most basic types of aid, such as food, clean drinking water, and shelter from the rain.

In a country with high levels of violent crime, residents set up their own security teams to keep watch at night, paying particular attention to the safety of women and girls, he added.

Security concerns about the gang-controlled areas on the route from the capital Port-au-Prince, as well as quake damage to some roads, have made access to some of the worst-affected zones difficult for aid and rescue teams.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday that successful negotiations with armed groups had permitted a humanitarian convoy to reach Les Cayes. Media said a truce had been agreed with the gangs.

Jerry Chandler, the head of Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency, which handles emergency response, said the government was sending aid to affected areas by land. In the first days after the quake, many medics and aid workers had rushed in by plane.

However, flash flooding and landslides in the wake of Tropical Storm Grace, which swept past Jamaica by Tuesday afternoon, worsened the difficulties of reaching remote communities.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is still recovering from a quake 11 years ago that killed more than 200,000. The latest calamity comes just over a month after the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise plunged the country into political turmoil.

HOSPITALS DAMAGED

Authorities said on Tuesday that the earthquake had killed at least 1,941 people, but with rescuers still pulling bodies from the rubble the tally looks set to rise.

In a rare piece of good news, authorities said 16 people were pulled from the wreckage on Tuesday, though as time passes, hopes for survivors dim.

Quake damage has hampered the work of several major hospitals. Doctors in makeshift tents have battled to save the injured, from young children to the elderly.

The United Nations said it had allocated $8 million in emergency relief funds.

Latin American countries such as Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela sent food, medicine and supplies, while the United States also dispatched supplies and search and rescue teams.

Dozens in the Les Cayes tent city hailed from the nearby poor neighborhood of Impasse Filadelfia, where crumbling cement homes, contorted tin roofs and soaked mattresses lined narrow dirt roads.

Water surged into the modest homes after a fast-moving river that edges the neighborhood burst its banks during the quake.

There, too, more than a dozen residents told Reuters that they had not seen any government representatives since the earthquake.

“We are crying out for help,” said one of them, Claudel Ledan. “All our houses collapsed and we need help from the government urgently.”

(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener in Les Cayes; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Clarence Fernandez)

‘We need food’: heavy rains lash Haiti quake survivors

By Laura Gottesdiener and Ricardo Arduengo

LES CAYES, Haiti (Reuters) -The search for survivors of a weekend earthquake that killed more than 1,400 people on Haiti resumed on Tuesday after an overnight storm battered thousands left homeless with heavy rain before the weather front moved on.

The quake brought down tens of thousands of buildings in the poorest country in the Americas, which is still recovering from a temblor 11 years ago that killed over 200,000 people, and flooding caused by the storm has complicated rescue efforts.

By Tuesday morning, only a light rain was falling over Les Cayes, the southern coastal city that bore the brunt of the 7.2 magnitude quake after Tropical Storm Grace had dumped torrential rains and caused flooding in at least one region.

At a tent city in Les Cayes containing many children and babies, over a hundred people scrambled to repair makeshift coverings made of wooden poles and tarps that were destroyed by Grace overnight. Some took cover under plastic sheets.

Mathieu Jameson, deputy head of the committee formed by the tent city residents, said hundreds of people there were in urgent need of food, shelter and medical care.

“We don’t have a doctor. We don’t have food. Every morning more people are arriving. We have no bathroom, no place to sleep. We need food, we need more umbrellas,” said Jameson, adding the tent city was still waiting for government aid.

Haiti’s latest natural disaster comes just over a month after Haiti was plunged into political turmoil by the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on July 7.

Several major hospitals were severely damaged, hampering humanitarian efforts, as were the focal points of many shattered communities, such as churches and schools.

Haitian authorities said on Monday that 1,419 deaths had been confirmed, with some 6,900 people injured.

As hopes began to dim of finding significant numbers of survivors among the wreckage, the storm impeded rescuers in the seaside city of Les Cayes, about 150 km (90 miles) west of the capital Port-au-Prince, which bore the brunt of the quake.

By early morning, Grace, which had been forecast to dump up to 15 inches (38 cm) of rain on parts of the country, had moved past Haiti and was advancing on the coast of Jamaica, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Centre.

Rescue workers were digging alongside residents through the rubble on Monday evening in a bid to reach bodies, though few voiced hope of finding anyone alive. A smell of dust and decomposing bodies permeated the air.

“We came from all over to help: from the north, from Port-au Prince, from everywhere,” said Maria Fleurant, a firefighter from northern Haiti.

Emergency workers pulled a blood-stained pillow from the rubble, followed by the corpse of a three-year-old boy who appeared to have died in his sleep during the earthquake.

Shortly after, as the rain intensified, the workers left.

RISING TOLL

With about 37,312 houses destroyed by the quake, according to Haitian authorities, and many of those still unexcavated, the death toll is expected to rise.

Vital Jaenkendy, who watched as a bulldozer shifted rubble from his collapsed apartment building, said eight residents had died and four were missing.

Jaenkendy and others have been sleeping under a tarpaulin on a dirt road nearby, and were hunkering down for the rains.

“When the storm comes, we’ll take shelter in car ports of the houses nearby, just until it passes, and then we’ll return to our place in the road,” he said.

Doctors battled in makeshift tents outside hospitals to save the lives of hundreds of injured, including young children and the elderly.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was sworn in less then a month ago after Moise’s assassination, vowed to disburse humanitarian aid better than in the wake of the 2010 quake.

Though billions of dollars in aid money poured into Haiti after that quake and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, many Haitians say they saw scant benefits from the uncoordinated efforts: government bodies remained weak, amid persistent shortages of food and basic goods.

“The earthquake is a great misfortune that happens to us in the middle of the hurricane season,” Henry told reporters, adding that the government would not repeat “the same things” done in 2010.

(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener and Ricardo Arduengo in Les Cayes, Haiti;Additional reporting by Herbert Villarraga and Robenson Sanon in Les Cayes; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Clarence Fernandez and Giles Elgood)

Medics, aid workers rush to reach Haiti quake zone before storm

By Laura Gottesdiener

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Doctors and aid workers rushed to get flights or transport to southwestern Haiti ahead of a storm on Monday to reach areas flattened by a major earthquake that killed at least 1,297 people and injured thousands more in the Caribbean nation.

Saturday’s 7.2 magnitude quake brought down thousands of homes and buildings in the deeply impoverished country, which is still recovering from another major temblor 11 years ago and the assassination of its president, Jovenel Moise, last month.

The areas in and around the city of Les Cayes suffered the biggest hit, putting enormous strain on local hospitals, some of which were badly damaged by the quake.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry said there was no time to lose.

“From this Monday, we will move faster. Aid provision is going to be accelerated,” he wrote on Twitter. “We will multiply efforts tenfold to reach as many victims as possible with aid.”

Port-au-Prince airport on Monday was bustling with medics and aid workers, with domestic and private charter flights filled with humanitarian teams and supplies headed south.

Access to the area has been complicated by months of political turmoil in Haiti, which has left gangs in control of key access routes to parts of the country.

The United Nations called for a “humanitarian corridor” to enable aid to pass through gang-held territories.

Aid workers were hurrying to beat the arrival of Tropical Depression Grace, which early on Monday was moving west-northwest off the southern coast of Hispaniola, the island that Haiti shares with the neighboring Dominican Republic.

According to projections by the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC), Grace will pass right through areas directly hit by the quake, and could douse them with heavy rain. Skies over Port-au-Prince were still clear early on Monday.

Many Haitians who lost their homes have been sleeping outdoors, many traumatized by memories of a magnitude 7 quake 11 years ago that struck far closer to Port-au-Prince, the capital.

Thousands of people sleeping in the streets would be exposed to rains amid a rising risk of waterborne diseases, such as cholera, according to Jerry Chandler, the head of Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency.

“We do have a serious issue,” Chandler said on Sunday.

He said boats and helicopters were being used to bring in aid, but the government was working to establish safe access by road. Initial supplies have made it through by land.

In Jeremie, to the northwest of Les Cayes, doctors were forced to treat injured patients on hospital stretchers underneath trees and on mattresses by the side of the road.

Churches, hotels and schools were also seriously damaged or ruined in the quake. Some 13,694 houses were destroyed, the civil protection agency said, and the toll could rise further.

In Les Cayes, a seafront town of some 90,000 people, rescuers in red hard hats and blue overalls pulled bodies from the tangled wreckage of one building, as a yellow mechanical excavator nearby helped to shift the rubble.

Nearby countries rushed to send food and medicines. Colombia dispatched search and rescue personnel. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday morning his country would continue to provide support to Haiti.

The United States sent vital supplies and deployed a 65-member urban search-and-rescue team with specialized equipment, said Samantha Power, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The death toll is expected to rise because the telephone network has been down in more remote areas. In difficult-to-reach villages, many houses were fragile and built on slopes vulnerable to landslides, said Alix Percinthe of the ActionAid charity.

(Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Jonathan Oatis)

Haiti to swear in new prime minister in wake of president’s assassination

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haiti will usher in a new prime minister on Tuesday as Ariel Henry takes the reins of the Caribbean country nearly two weeks after President Jovenel Moise’s was gunned down in a murder plot that likely extends far beyond its borders.

Official memorial services for the slain Moise were to begin on Tuesday as the impoverished nation struggling with lawlessness fueled by violent gangs eagerly awaits findings of the investigation into the assassination.

Moise was killed on July 7 in the middle of the night at his private residence in Port-au-Prince by a group of more than 20 mostly Colombian mercenaries. The leader’s own security chief, some Haitian police officers and a couple of Haitian-Americans have been taken into custody on suspicion of involvement in the conspiracy to murder the president.

Moise’s killing has rocked an already fragile political system while focusing attention on weak security institutions beset by powerful gangs that control swathes of Haiti like feudal lords.

Elections have not been held in Haiti since 2016, but are currently set for September.

Henry, a 71-year-old neurosurgeon, was tapped by Moise to be the new prime minister just days before he was assassinated. But he was not then formally sworn in to the position.

Claude Joseph, the former prime minister, clung to the job in the immediate aftermath of the assassination despite sharp criticism from domestic political opponents who accused him of pursuing a reckless power grab.

Joseph has returned to his previous job as foreign minister, just as several other ministers are expected to keep their old portfolios for now.

Moise’s wife Marine Moise, who was also shot during the assassination, arrived back in Haiti over the weekend after being treated for her wounds at a hospital in Miami.

(Reporting by Andre Paultre and Dave Graham; Writing by David Alire Garcia; editing by Grant McCool)

Colombian police say no ‘hypothesis’ in Haiti assassination probe

By Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombian police said on Monday they could not share any hypothesis about the murder of Haitian President Jovenel Moise and that they respect the Haitian state’s autonomy, after 18 Colombians tied to the case were arrested and three others killed.

Moise was shot dead early on Wednesday at his Port-au-Prince home by what Haitian authorities describe as a unit of assassins formed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, plunging the troubled Caribbean nation deeper into turmoil.

On Sunday, Haitian police said they had detained one of the suspected masterminds, 63-year-old Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian man whom authorities accuse of hiring mercenaries to oust and replace Moise. They did not explain Sanon’s motives beyond saying they were political.

“We cannot construct any hypothesis,” General Jorge Luis Vargas, head of the Colombian national police, told journalists in Bogota. “We respect the judicial autonomy of the Haitian state and its authorities.”

Families of some of the Colombians, many ex-soldiers, have said their loved ones were hired as bodyguards, not as mercenaries, and that they are innocent of killing Moise.

The men were initially contracted to protect Sanon, Haiti’s National Police Chief Leon Charles said Sunday, but then they were given a warrant for Moise’s arrest.

Most of the men were detained after an overnight shoot-out on Wednesday in Petionville, a hillside suburb of Port-au-Prince, and three killed.

Nineteen tickets to Haiti were bought for the men via a Miami-based company called CTU, Vargas added.

CTU, run by Venezuelan émigré Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera, has not responded to requests for comment from Reuters made on Sunday.

A man named Dimitri Herard, who served as Moise’s head of security, transited through Colombia multiple times earlier this year, Vargas added, during trips to Ecuador and the Dominican Republic between January and May.

Colombian police are investigating Herard’s activities during his visits, Vargas said.

High-ranking Colombian intelligence officials have been in Haiti since late on Friday to assist with the investigation.

Haitians in parts of Port-au-Prince were planning protests this week against interim prime minister and acting head of state Claude Joseph, according to social media posts.

Joseph’s right to lead the country has been challenged by other senior politicians, threatening to exacerbate the turmoil engulfing the poorest country in the Americas.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Haitian president assassinated at home, sparking fears of widespread turmoil

By Andre Paultre

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -Haitian President Jovenel Moise was shot dead by unidentified attackers in his private residence overnight in a “barbaric act,” the government said on Wednesday, stirring fears of escalating turmoil in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The assassination coincided with a wave of gang violence in Port-au-Prince as armed groups have battled with police and one another for control of the streets in recent months, turning many districts of the capital into no-go zones.

The 53-year-old president’s wife, Martine Moise, was also shot in the attack that took place around 1 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and was receiving medical treatment, Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a statement.

“A group of unidentified individuals, some of them speaking Spanish, attacked the private residence of the president of the republic and thus fatally wounded the head of state,” he said.

Joseph said the police and army had the security situation under control though gunfire could be heard throughout the crime-ridden capital of 1 million people after the attack.

With Haiti politically polarized and facing a growing humanitarian crisis and shortages of food, fears of widespread chaos are spreading. The Dominican Republic said it was closing the border it shares with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola.

The bloodshed in Haiti is driven by worsening poverty and political unrest.

TURBULENT HISTORY

The country of about 11 million people – the poorest nation in the western hemisphere – has struggled to achieve stability since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, and grappled with a series of coups and foreign interventions.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission – meant to restore order after a rebellion toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 – ended in 2019 with the country still in turmoil. In recent years, Haiti has been buffeted by a series of natural disasters and still bears the scars of a major earthquake in 2010.

Moise, a banana exporter-turned-politician, faced fierce protests after taking office as president in 2017. This year, the opposition accused him of seeking to install a dictatorship by overstaying his mandate and becoming more authoritarian. He denied those accusations.

“All measures are being taken to guarantee the continuity of the state and to protect the nation,” Joseph said.

Moise had ruled by decree for more than a year after the country failed to hold legislative elections and wanted to push through a controversial constitutional reform.

The U.S. Embassy said in a statement it would be closed on Wednesday due to the “ongoing security situation”.

The United States is assessing the “tragic attack” and President Joe Biden will be briefed on the assassination, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in Washington.

“We stand ready and stand by them to provide any assistance that’s needed,” she said. “Of course our embassy and State Department will be in close touch but it’s a tragedy. We stand with them and it’s important that people of Haiti know that.”

The United States had on June 30 condemned what it described as a systematic violation of human rights, fundamental freedoms and attacks on the press in Haiti, urging the government to counter a proliferation of gangs and violence.

Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader held an emergency meeting early on Wednesday about the situation in Haiti but had yet to issue a statement.

(Reporting by Andre Paultre in Port-au-Prince with additional reporting by Ezequiel Abiu Lopez in Santo Domingo, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu in Washington Writing by Sarah MarshEditing by Daniel Flynn and Mark Heinrich)

Coronavirus wave takes Haiti, yet to begin vaccinations, by surprise

By Andre Paultre and Sarah Marsh

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – For more than a year, Haiti escaped the worst ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting few cases and fatalities – a rare break for the poorest country in the Americas, which has so often been beset by misfortune.

COVID-19 treatment centers closed for lack of patients, Haitians resumed life as normal, and the government hesitated to even accept its allotment of free AstraZeneca vaccines through the U.N.-backed COVAX mechanism due to safety and logistical concerns.

Now, though, as some countries are already moving into a post-pandemic phase thanks to vaccination campaigns, Haiti is grappling with its first serious outbreak.

And it is one of only a handful of countries worldwide that has yet to administer a single shot of coronavirus vaccine.

Last month, infections and fatalities rose more than fivefold following the arrival of new variants, in what the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) called a “cautionary tale in just how quickly things can change with this virus.”

Officially, Haiti had recorded 15,895 infections and 333 deaths from COVID-19 as of June 5 among its 11 million people – relatively low case numbers compared to elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Yet data is limited due to low testing rates and doctors say the real numbers are likely much higher. Every day comes news of deaths from COVID-19 of well-known figures, like a former senator or the head of the pension agency.

And the upwards trend could prove “catastrophic,” according to Laure Adrien, General Director of Haiti’s Health Ministry.

Poor sanitation means disease can spread fast in Haiti. Its slums are densely packed, and its already overwhelmed and shambolic healthcare system is dependent on fickle donations.

Last week, two of the main hospitals treating COVID-19 patients in capital Port-au-Prince announced they were saturated.

“We are overwhelmed with patients,” said Marc Edson Augustin, medical director of St. Luke Hospital.

Jean ‘Bill’ Pape, a top Haitian infectious disease expert, said the country was now not as prepared as it had been.

“We need to reopen new centers to increase the number of dedicated COVID beds,” said Pape.

The new wave also comes amid surging gang violence that is hampering the provision of what little healthcare is available.

The St. Luke hospital warned on Monday it may have to close its COVID-19 unit altogether as violence was making it hard to stock up on oxygen at the production site in the Cite Soleil slum.

Already in February Doctors Without Borders (MSF) shut all but the emergency department at the hospital in Cite Soleil where it last year treated COVID-19 patients.

Wealthier Haitians are paying to be medevaced to Florida or the Dominican Republic.

NOT A PRIORITY

Haitian doctors largely credited their country’s apparent resilience to the coronavirus last year to its relatively young population. Around half of Haitians are under 25 years old.

Many locals dismissed the virus as not a big deal or even doubted its existence. Its importance faded amid a growing humanitarian crisis in the wake of political unrest and extreme weather associated with climate change.

So when reports emerged last month of the arrival of the new variants first identified in Britain and Brazil and an uptick in cases, reaction was initially subdued.

Authorities mandated renewed precautions like masks in public spaces, instituted an overnight curfew, and suspended year-end graduation ceremonies. President Jovenel Moise urged Haitians to drink medicinal tea to ward off the virus, an unproven remedy.

Yet many Haitians continued life as usual, with authorities unwilling or unable to enforce measures. One mayor of a Port-au-Prince district last week staged a music concert attended by thousands not wearing masks.

Pressure is building, though. PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said last week there was “no time to waste” as additional health capacity and preventive measures to curb transmission would be “decisive.”

Businesses are starting to require Haitians to only enter wearing masks and new COVID-19 treatment centers are opening.

“We have to open new structures to take more patients with respiratory difficulties to avoid a catastrophe,” said Ronald Laroche, a doctor who runs a network of low-cost health centers and hospitals, and opened a COVID-19 center this week.

On Monday, the electoral council postponed a referendum on a new constitution that had been scheduled for the end of June.

And next week, Haiti should receive its first batch – 130,000 doses – of COVID-19 vaccines through the World Health Organization’s COVAX vaccination scheme.

Doctors say the challenge now will be convincing Haitians to actually have the vaccine.

Ronald Jean, 38, a restaurant manager in Port-au-Prince, said he was for the first time afraid of the virus.

But “first the authorities should take the vaccine on television, we’ll see how they do,” he said. “And then I will decide whether or not to take it.”

(Reporting by Andre Paultre and Valerie Baeriswyl in Port-au-Prince and Sarah Marsh in Havana; Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Sao Paolo; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Colombia’s police advises Haiti on tackling kidnapping crisis

By Sarah Marsh

HAVANA (Reuters) – Colombia, once the kidnap capital of the world, reduced kidnappings by 95% over the past two decades. Now the anti-kidnapping unit of its national police hopes to help Haiti tackle its own epidemic of abductions for ransom.

Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Eduardo Tellez Betancourt told Reuters his team of four specialists had delivered its report on Haiti’s kidnapping crisis on Tuesday after three months of on-the-ground research.

Among the report’s conclusions are the need for Haiti’s anti-kidnapping unit to receive more specialized training – for example at Colombia’s anti-kidnapping school – and better equipment for investigating crime.

That includes the tools to intercept, analyze and block communications, he said, which in turn could help root out or disincentivize alleged connivance between politicians and the gangs responsible for kidnappings.

Haiti’s kidnapping crisis is terrifying Haitians, stunting economic activity in what is already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere and last month prompted a change in government.

“Kidnappings have increased because gangs have strengthened,” Tellez said by telephone, adding that before 2016, Haitian police had often been able to rescue those taken hostage. Since then, however, “the gangs have strengthened in weapons and criminal structure… preventing police from being able to carry out these rescue operations.”

NO-GO ZONES

Tellez said insufficient border controls had allowed Haitian gangs to get their hands on more weapons, turning certain areas into no-go zones for Haiti’s understaffed, underequipped police force – and perfect locations to hold victims hostage until a lucrative ransom was paid.

Four policemen died in March in a gun battle with alleged criminals after attempting to enter a slum in the capital where kidnapping victims are often held.

The nonprofit Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research in Port-au-Prince recorded at least 91 kidnappings in Haiti in April, with requested ransoms ranging from $100,000 to $1 million. Only five victims were freed without paying a ransom.

Tellez also blamed politics for the growing power of gangs in a country plagued by instability, without going into details.

Haitian human rights experts say politicians from across the political spectrum use armed groups to achieve their own ends, supplying them with weapons. They accuse President Jovenel Moise in particular of fomenting gang crime.

One notorious gang leader, who last year formed a federation of nine gangs, the “G9,” even staged a march in January in favor of Moise’s government.

Moise, who took office in 2017, denies the charges of complicity with gangs and has said tackling gang crime including kidnappings is a priority for his government.

One of the obstacles to resolving the crisis is distrust in police among many Haitians. Some kidnapping victims have reported people wearing police uniforms or driving police vehicles carrying out kidnappings.

Tellez said Haiti needed to weed out possible corruption in the police with better control mechanisms and strengthen its capacity to investigate kidnappings. For that, it needed to hire more officers to its anti-kidnapping unit and train them up.

While Colombia’s population is five times that of Haiti’s 11 million, its anti-kidnapping unit, at 1300 officers, is 60 times bigger, according to numbers supplied by Tellez.

Haiti should also invest in technological tools for investigating such as a “room for intercepting communication”.

Tellez said his team was scheduled now to return to Colombia, handing off the case to a new team of specialists that would travel to Haiti to continue advising on the kidnapping crisis in an initiative agreed by the Colombian, Haitian and U.S. governments.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Gareth Jones)

‘Descent into hell’: Kidnapping explosion terrorizes Haiti

By Andre Paultre and Sarah Marsh

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – A wave of kidnappings is sweeping Haiti. But even in a country growing inured to horrific abductions, the case of five-year-old Olslina Janneus sparked outrage.

Olslina was snatched off the streets of the capital Port-au-Prince in late January as she was playing. The child’s corpse, bearing signs of strangulation, turned up a week later, according to her mother, Nadege Saint Hilaire, a peanut vendor who said she couldn’t pay the $4,000 ransom. Saint Hilaire’s cries filled the airwaves as she spoke to a few local radio stations seeking help raising funds to cover funeral costs.

Saint Hilaire is now in hiding after receiving death threats, she said, from the same gang that killed her daughter. “I wasn’t supposed to go to the radio to denounce what had happened,” she told Reuters.

Police in her impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhood, Martissant, told Reuters they were investigating the case.

Haiti’s epidemic of kidnappings is the latest crisis to befall this Caribbean island nation of around 11 million people, roiled by deepening political unrest and economic misery. Kidnappings last year tripled to 234 cases compared to 2019, according to official data compiled by the United Nations.

The real figures are likely much higher because many Haitians don’t report abductions, fearing retribution from criminal gangs, according to attorney Gedeon Jean, director of the nonprofit Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research in Port-au-Prince. He said the research center recorded 796 kidnappings last year.

Haiti’s national police force did not respond to a request for comment. President Jovenel Moise has said repeatedly that his government is doing all it can, and has put more resources into anti-kidnapping efforts. Still, he publicly acknowledged on April 14 that “kidnappings have become generalized” and that efforts to combat persistent insecurity have been “ineffective.”

Human rights activists and a new report from Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic allege that Moise’s government has allied itself with violent criminal gangs to maintain its grip on power and to suppress dissent. Opposition groups have called for Moise to resign and hand power to a transitional government that would delay presidential and legislative elections slated for September until the nation is stable enough to ensure a free and fair contest.

Haiti’s acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph denied those allegations and the report’s findings. He said anti-democratic forces are whipping up violence to destabilize Moise’s administration in an election year. “They are fomenting the gangs to stop there being elections,” Joseph told Reuters.

Criminals have targeted some poor people, like Saint Hilaire, for modest sums. Many more victims come from the ranks of the Haitian middle class – teachers, priests, civil servants, small business owners. Such targets aren’t rich enough to afford bodyguards but have enough assets or connections to scrape up a ransom.

In one of the most high-profile recent cases, five Catholic priests, two nuns and three laymen were kidnapped on April 11 in the commune of Croix-des-Bouquets, northeast of the capital. Four members of the group were subsequently released and six are still missing, according to an April 25 statement by the Society of Priests of St. Jacques, a French missionary society linked to four of the kidnapped priests. An official with that group declined to comment on whether a ransom was paid.

“For some time now, we have been witnessing the descent into hell of Haitian society,” the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince said in a statement earlier this month.

‘KILLING THE ECONOMY’

Haiti last experienced a major surge in kidnappings and gang violence after a rebellion toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, prompting the United Nations to send in a peacekeeping force.

The departure of that force in October 2019 was followed by a resurgence in gang crime, according to human-rights activists, who say kidnapping has proven lucrative at a time when Haiti’s economy is teetering.

Rights activists say politics also play a role. They allege Moise’s government has harnessed criminal groups to terrorize neighborhoods known as opposition strongholds and to quell public dissent amid street protests that have rocked the country the past three years.

The report released April 22 by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School alleges “high-level government involvement in the planning, execution and cover-up” of three gang-led attacks on poor neighborhoods between 2018 and 2020 that left at least 240 civilians dead. The report relied on investigations of the attacks by Haitian and international human rights experts. It alleges the government provided gangs with money, weapons and vehicles and shielded them from prosecution.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury in December sanctioned reputed Haitian gang leader Jimmy Cherizier and two former Moise administration officials – Fednel Monchery and Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan – for helping orchestrate one of the attacks. All three have denied wrongdoing.

Kidnapping is an outgrowth of impunity for criminal organizations, according to Rosy Auguste Ducena, program manager of the Port-au-Prince-based National Network for the Defense of Human Rights.

“We are talking about a regime that has allied itself with armed gangs,” Ducena said.

Justice Minister Rockefeller Vincent denied any government alliance with gangs. He told Reuters in December that the wave of kidnappings was the work of political enemies seeking to undermine Moise “by creating a sense of chaos.”

The rise in kidnappings has petrified many Haitians. The heads of seven private business associations this month issued a joint statement saying they had reached “a saturation point” with soaring crime. They endorsed a nationwide work stoppage that occurred on April 15 to protest Haiti’s security crisis.

“Kidnapping is killing the economy,” said Haitian economist Etzer Emile. He said the tourism and entertainment sectors have withered.

Moise’s administration says it is working hard to end the terror. Two years ago it revived a commission aimed at disarming gang members and reintegrating them into society. Over the past year, the government has increased the police budget and solicited advice from Colombia, which once battled its own kidnapping epidemic. In March, Haiti created an anti-kidnapping task force to attack the problem with tactics such as tracing laundered ransom money.

Still, four policemen died last month in a gun battle with alleged criminals in a slum where kidnapping victims are often held. The government declared a month-long state of emergency in gang-controlled neighborhoods. Yet abductions continue to mount.

Moise, who has opted not to seek re-election this September, has defied the opposition’s calls for him to step down early. On April 14 he issued a statement saying he aimed to form a government of national unity to better tackle the “pressing problem of insecurity.”

HOODS, GUNS AND TORTURE

Many Haitians remain skeptical – and on edge.

One victim was a 29-year-old doctor. He was kidnapped in his own vehicle last November after leaving the Port-au-Prince hospital where he had just finished an overnight shift. He told Reuters his story on condition of anonymity.

At dawn, four armed assailants hustled him into the back seat, threw a hood over his head and held him at gunpoint as they drove, he said. His captors eventually tossed him into a room with three other abductees – a man and two women – who had been snatched earlier.

The physician said his kidnappers ordered him to phone his family to request $500,000 for his release. The first two people he tried said they couldn’t pay. The kidnappers slapped him and delivered a threat.

“They said that if I called a third person that didn’t give me a satisfying response, they would kill me,” he said.

The doctor’s girlfriend said she and three friends negotiated with the gang. She wouldn’t say how much they paid, fearful of becoming targets for other criminals.

The doctor said he reported his abduction to Haiti’s national anti-kidnapping police unit. That unit did not respond to requests for comment.

The physician does not know the fate of his fellow abductees. He said the kidnappers poured melted Styrofoam on their skin because their families had yet to pay up.

Saint Hilaire, the mother of the young girl who was kidnapped and murdered, said she continues to watch her back after speaking publicly about the abduction.

The kidnappers “told me to make sure I never ran into them, because they would kill me,” she said.

(Reporting by Andre Paultre in Port-au-Prince and Sarah Marsh in Havana; editing by Marla Dickerson)

Hurricane Laura approaches U.S. Gulf Coast forcing tens of thousands to evacuate

(Reuters) – Hurricane Laura was bearing down on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Tuesday, threatening fierce winds and storm surge from San Luis Pass, Texas to Ocean Springs, Mississippi and prompting thousands to evacuate before an expected Thursday landfall.

The storm strengthened to a hurricane as its center moved northwest over Cuba early Tuesday at 16 miles per hour (26 kph)with sustained winds of 70 miles per hour (110 kph), and it was due to intensify over the next two days, the National Hurricane Center said.

The Texas city of Galveston imposed a mandatory evacuation order on Tuesday after the storm’s track veered westward overnight towards to the island community of some 50,000 people. The storm was 620 miles (1,000 km) southeast of Galveston on Tuesday morning.

“It’s imperative that you make plans this morning to secure your homes and move you and your family to safety off island,” acting Mayor Craig Brown said in a statement on Tuesday.

More than 330,000 residents living in Jefferson and Orange Counties in eastern Texas were also placed under a mandatory evacuation order on Tuesday.

On Monday, the mayor of Port Arthur, Texas, an oil town of 54,000 people 85 miles (137 km) east of Houston, ordered a mandatory evacuation, giving residents until 6 a.m. on Tuesday to leave.

Laura is projected to make landfall in the Texas-Louisiana border region late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning as a major hurricane, possibly Category 3 on the 5-step Saffir-Simpson scale for measuring hurricane intensity, the NHC said.

“This has the potential to be the strongest hurricane to hit since Hurricane Rita,” Louisiana Governor John Edwards said at a Monday evening news conference, referring to the Category 5 hurricane that hit in 2005.

The storm comes on the heels of Tropical Storm Marco, which weakened sooner than expected and made landfall on Monday in Louisiana before dissipating.

Laura skirted the southern coast of Cuba on Monday but did not cause as much damage as it did in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where it killed at least 10 people.

The coincidence of Laura’s storm surge with high tide along the Gulf Coast from High Island, Texas to Morgan City, Louisiana could result in water levels rising as high as 11 feet, the Miami-based forecaster said.

Rainfall along the coast near the Texas-Louisiana border, as much as a foot of water in some places, was expected to cause widespread flooding.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Marguerita Choy)