Tag Archives: Prime Minister Ariel Henry

Gangs surge across Haiti; Prime Minister steps down following multinational emergency meeting seeking solution

Dead-lie-in-Haiti-streets

Important Takeaways:

  • Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry, 74, resigns after gangs warned of civil war and ‘genocide’ if he did not step down amid bloody uprising
  • Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry has resigned, following an emergency summit called to address gang-led violence currently occurring in the country.
  • The 74-year-old head of state tendered his resignation Monday, a week after the growing coalition of gangs warned of civil war if he did not step down.
  • His resignation was swiftly confirmed by Guyana’s president Mohamed Irfaan Ali, the current chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
  • The coalition called the emergency meeting as gangs across the Caribbean country continue to unite, shooting up government buildings and foreign embassies.
  • As a result, thousands have had fled their homes, and locals continue to report the overwhelming stench of the dead. Meanwhile, politicians across the region are scrambling for a solution – one that may now be in sight following Henry’s removal.

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Haiti’s leader has left Port-au-Prince as Gangs wreak havoc attacking key institutions

Gang-Violence-Haiti

Important Takeaways:

  • Haiti violence sees police ‘attacked with machetes’ as gangs wreak havoc in Port-au-Prince
  • Describing the violence in the country, a journalist on the ground told Daily Express US that cannibalism has been witnessed on the streets as the violence reaches “unprecedented” levels.
  • Speaking anonymously, they said: “Haiti is living in a total chaotic situation right now. It is total chaos everywhere, especially in the capital where I am right now.
  • “Haiti has a leader, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, but he is not inside the country right now. In the meantime, you have gangs waging full attacks on key institutions.
  • “You also have attacks on police stations. On February 28 a police station was attacked. The officers were in there for three hours crying for help, and after that, we saw images of officers being cut by machetes being shared on social media.
  • “The gangs are heavily armed with guns from the US, but they are also equipped with high-level technology like drones.
  • “The level of violence is unprecedented. The gangs seemingly want to kill as many people as they can. They are in a fear campaign where they want to appear as murderous and as violent as possible.”
  • He continued: “For instance, we have seen images of gang leaders eating people they have killed. We have seen images of people being tortured when they are kidnapped.
  • “It is senseless. The goal here is not just to ensue fear, but to paralyze people mentally. This is a message that Haiti is under the total control of gangs.”
  • Henry is an unpopular acting Prime Minister of Haiti who has been criticized for failing to quell the gangs. He was never elected into his role and is now losing the trust of the country’s population.
  • He left the country last week, and his whereabouts remain unclear

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Haiti’s streets slowly return to life as gangs ease fuel blockade

By Gessika Thomas

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haitian businesses began opening their doors and activities were resuming on the country’s streets as the G9 gang coalition eased a blockade on fuel deliveries that caused crippling shortages for nearly a month.

The G9 gang federation that controls key parts of western Port-au-Prince over the weekend allowed trucks to access the Varreux fuel terminal, leading to long lines at filling stations.

Banks were operating normal hours after limiting operations due to the lack of diesel for generators, which are crucial for ensuring electricity in a country where the national grid only provide intermittent power.

Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, leader of the federation, on Friday said the group would allow fuel trucks to get access to the Varreux fuel terminal for one week. He warned the blockade would resume if Prime Minister Ariel Henry did not resign.

G9 has blocked fuel deliveries since last month demanding the resignation of the prime minister. Henry has said the government will not negotiate with criminals, and that Haitian National Police had created security cordons to help ensure the delivery of fuel.

Despite the reopening of the terminal, many drivers on Monday were still struggling to buy fuel, with some buying it in plastic containers on the black market.

“I spent the whole day yesterday looking for gas but without success,” said Oscar Julien, 41, a truck driver who delivers construction material. “I have not yet managed to fill up at a pump, I had to buy on the street because I had to get home.”

(Reporting by Gessika Thomas and Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Haiti crippled by fuel shortages as gang leader demands prime minister resign

By Brian Ellsworth and Gessika Thomas

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -Haiti’s streets were unusually quiet on Tuesday and gas stations remained dry as gangs blocked the entrance to ports that hold fuel stores and the country’s main gang boss demanded that Prime Minister Ariel Henry resign.

Days-long fuel shortages have left Haitians with few transport options and forced the closure of some businesses. Hospitals, which rely on diesel generators to ensure electricity due to constant blackouts, may shut down as well.

The situation has put further pressure on a population already struggling under a weakening economy and a wave of gang kidnappings, which include the abduction earlier this month of a group of Canadian and American missionaries.

Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, leader of the ‘G9’ coalition of gangs in the metropolitan area of the capital Port-au-Prince, said in a radio interview on Monday night that he would ensure safe passage of fuel trucks if Henry leaves office.

“The areas under the control of the G9 are blocked for one reason only – we demand the resignation of Ariel Henry,” Cherizier said in an interview on Haiti’s Radio Mega.

“If Ariel Henry resigns at 8:00 am, at 8:05 am we will unblock the road and all the trucks will be able to go through to get fuel.”

A spokesperson for Henry’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Reuters was unable to contact Cherizier.

His statements show how gangs have taken on an increasingly political role following the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise. Cherizier has said Henry should “answer questions” linking him to Moise’s murder. Henry has denied any involvement.

Elections had originally been scheduled for November but were suspended after Henry last month dismissed the council that organizes elections, which critics had accused of being biased in favor of Moise. Henry has promised to appoint a new non-partisan council that will set a new date.

Kidnappings have been in the headlines for months as Haitians from all walks of life face abduction by the increasingly powerful gangs.

The missionaries traveling as part of a trip organized by Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries was abducted by a gang called 400 Mawozo that operates east of the capital and is seeking a ransom of $1 million for each person.

Christian Aid Ministries asked people in a statement on Tuesday to remember both those “being held hostage as well as those recovering from the experience of being kidnapped.”

‘THE WORST I’VE SEEN’

Haiti’s foreign aid bureau BMPAD, which oversees fuel procurement, tweeted a video saying the country has 150,000 barrels of diesel and 50,000 barrels of gasoline, with another 50,000 barrels of gasoline set to arrive on Wednesday.

A total 100,000 barrels of diesel and gasoline would supply Haiti’s fuel needs for five to seven says, said Marc Andre Deriphonse, head of the country’s service station owners’ association ANAPROSS.

Businesses have been warning that they may have to halt operations for lack of fuel. Telecoms firms said some cell towers are no longer in operation.

“This is the worst I’ve seen,” said one motorcycle taxi driver waiting to pick up passengers outside Port-au-Prince, when asked about the fuel shortages. He declined to give his name.

Motorcycle drivers strap one-gallon containers to their bikes in the hopes of filling them with fuel sold on the black market. A gallon of gas on the street can now fetch $20, compared with typical filling station prices of around $2.

Transportation industry leaders have called for strikes to protest the wave of kidnappings, which have disproportionately affected truck drivers and public transport workers.

United Nations children’s agency UNICEF on Sunday said it had negotiated fuel deliveries to Haitian hospitals but that the provider later refused to make the deliveries, citing security conditions.

At one police station near Port-au-Prince, two officers had been unable to get to work due to fuel shortages, according to a police official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak with reporters.

“Most of our vehicles have about a quarter of a tank,” he said.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth and Gessika Thomas in Port-au-Prince, Additional reporting by Brad Brooks, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

‘Painful days ahead’ as Haitians struggle to count lives lost in quake

By Laura Gottesdiener

CAVAILLON, Haiti (Reuters) -Haitian officials slowly tallied the dead and disappeared in remote villages on Thursday, after the toll from last weekend’s devastating earthquake passed 2,000 and Prime Minister Ariel Henry warned the Caribbean nation faced painful times ahead.

In the small town of Cavaillon, local officials huddled over pieces of paper where they recorded the number of damaged houses, schools and churches in each of the surrounding villages, along with the number of dead and missing.

“We think there are still bodies in the ruins because we can smell them from underneath the rubble,” said Jean Mary Naissant, one of the officials of Cavaillon, which is near the southern city of Les Cayes, one of the areas worst hit by the earthquake.

Haiti’s civil protection agency said late on Wednesday the death toll from Saturday’s powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake had risen to 2,189, with most of the fatalities in the country’s south, and that the number of wounded stood at 12,200.

Les Cayes residents were jolted from their beds by a fresh aftershock overnight, but there were no immediate reports of damage, a police officer said. Families slept on mattresses on the streets across the city, nervous about the state of buildings.

The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti is still recovering from a 2010 quake that killed over 200,000. The latest disaster struck just weeks after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated on July 7, plunging the nation of 11 million people into political turmoil.

According to the tallies for Cavaillon and the small villages that belong to it, there were 53 fatalities and more than 2,700 wounded in the area. But there were still 21 people unaccounted for six days after the quake, local officials said.

Residents had staged a protest on Monday to demand more assistance to dig out the collapsed buildings, Naissant said, but government help had yet to arrive from the capital, some 180 km (110 miles) to the east.

A village market and hotel nearby were bustling with people when the quake struck on Saturday morning, reducing the area to a great heap of shattered cement and twisted iron rods.

Residents had managed to recover two bodies from the site, said Jimmy Amazan, another local official, but the stench that emanated from underneath the pile during the rescue efforts suggested there were more that were beyond reach.

Prime Minister Henry said late on Wednesday the whole country was physically and mentally devastated.

“Our hearts are tearing apart; some of our compatriots are still under the rubble,” he said, appealing for the troubled nation to come together at a time of crisis. “The days ahead will be difficult and often painful.”

In Boileau, a farming village about a 20 minutes’ drive from Cavaillon, residents said that officials had not arrived yet to document the victims or destroyed buildings, leaving them to wonder whether the damage there was part of the official record.

Renette Petithomme, a police officer, stood in the grass outside her partially collapsed home with her toddler daughter.

She was worried: her father had departed earlier in the day for the capital Port-au-Prince to seek medical care for the head wound he sustained when the home’s walls fell in, but the public bus had broken down en route.

“Since the earthquake, he’s been losing his senses, having trouble speaking and walking,” she said, adding that the family finally decided to send him to the capital for treatment after learning that all the nearby hospitals were full.

Several days since the earthquake, scant aid has arrived in remote areas across the country’s south, according to residents and Reuters witnesses.

In Camp-Perrin, another rural town inland from Les Cayes, more than 100 displaced people, including children and disabled residents, were camped out in a field under the cover of trees after their homes were destroyed by the quake.

A mudslide from two nights of heavy rain earlier this week had partly blocked the main road leading to the area. Any more precipitation could lead to it being impassable, locals said.

(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener in Cavaillon and Gessika Thomas in Port-au-Prince Additional reporting by Henry Romero in Camp-Perrin; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa and Nick Zieminski)

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)