Armed gangs have tried to seize control of Haiti’s main international airport, exchanging gunfire with police and soldiers in the latest attack on key government sites.
An explosion of violence has taken place in the country, including a mass escape from the country’s prisons.
Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier, a former elite police officer who now runs a gang federation, has claimed responsibility for the surge in attacks.
The Toussaint Louverture International Airport was closed when the attack occurred, with no planes operating and no passengers on site.
It is the biggest attack on the airport in Haiti’s history.
Last week, the airport was struck briefly by bullets amid ongoing gang attacks, but gangs did not enter the airport nor seize control of it.
The attack occurred just hours after authorities in Haiti ordered a night-time curfew following violence in which armed gang members overran the two biggest prisons and freed thousands of inmates over the weekend.
A 72-hour state of emergency began on Sunday night. The government said it would try to track down the escaped inmates, including from a penitentiary were the vast majority were in pre-trial detention, with some accused of killings, kidnappings and other crimes.
Gangs already were estimated to control up to 80% of the capital Port-au-Prince. They are increasingly co-ordinating their actions and choosing once unthinkable targets such as the Central Bank.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry travelled abroad last week to try to salvage support for a United Nations-backed security force to help stabilise Haiti in its conflict with the increasingly powerful crime groups.
Haiti’s National Police has roughly 9,000 officers to provide security for more than 11 million people, according to the UN. They are routinely overwhelmed and outgunned.
The deadly weekend marked a new low in Haiti’s downwards spiral of violence. At least nine people had been killed since Thursday - four of them police officers - as gangs stepped up co-ordinated attacks on state institutions in Port-au-Prince, including the national football stadium.
But the attack on the National Penitentiary late Saturday shocked Haitians who are accustomed to living under the constant threat of violence.
Almost all of the estimated 4,000 inmates escaped. Three bodies with gunshot wounds lay at the prison entrance on Sunday.
Among the few dozen people who chose to stay in prison are 18 former Colombian soldiers accused of working as mercenaries in the July 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise.
“Please, please help us,” one of the men, Francisco Uribe, said in a message widely shared on social media. “They are massacring people indiscriminately inside the cells.”
Colombia’s foreign ministry has called on Haiti to provide “special protection” for the men.
A second Port-au-Prince prison containing around 1,400 inmates was also overrun.
Gunfire was reported in several neighbourhoods in the capital. Internet service for many residents was down as Haiti’s top mobile network said a cable connection was slashed during the rampage.
After gangs opened fire at Haiti’s international airport last week, the US embassy said it was halting all official travel to the country. On Sunday night, it urged all American citizens to depart as soon as possible.
The Biden administration, which has refused to commit troops to any multinational force for Haiti while offering money and logistical support, said it was monitoring the rapidly deteriorating security situation with grave concern.
The surge in attacks follows violent protests that turned deadlier in recent days as the prime minister went to Kenya seeking to move ahead on the proposed UN-backed security mission to be led by that East African country.
Jimmy Cherizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who now runs a gang federation, has claimed responsibility for the surge in attacks. He said the goal is to capture Haiti’s police chief and government ministers and prevent Mr Henry’s return.
The prime minister, a neurosurgeon, has shrugged off calls for him to resign and did not comment when asked if he felt it was safe to come home.
Why is there violence in Haiti?
Some of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders say their goal is bringing down Henry.
The country has failed to hold parliamentary and general elections in recent years and there are no elected officials. Henry was sworn in as prime minister with the backing of the international community after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The latest round of attacks began in February after Henry pledged to hold long-awaited general elections by mid-2025.
A map of Port-au-Prince in Haiti
Henry’s whereabouts were not public Monday. When asked in Kenya if it was safe for him to return to Haiti, Henry shrugged.
Who is responsible for the violence?
Jimmy Chirizier, a former elite police officer known as “Barbecue” who is considered one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders, announced as gunmen began to attack infrastructure that he would try and capture the country’s police chief and government ministers.
Four police officers were killed when their stations came under siege.
Cherizier said last summer that he would fight any international armed force if they committed abuses, and he urged Haitians to mobilize against the government.
Other gang leaders also appear to be involved in recent attacks.
Johnson Andrï best known as “Izo” and leader of the 5 Seconds gang, appears in a video posted on TikTok wielding a heavy mallet in his right hand as he pretends to punch his face with his left hand.
Izo’s gang is considered an ally of G-Pep, archenemy of Barbecue’s gang federation, but alliances have been shifting in recent days.
A report released last month by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime found that “for the gangs, the development of alliances is a fluid phenomenon.”
It also noted how “only the most powerful gangs — such as Izo’s or Chïrizier’s — are usually able to operate or profiteer outside their fiefdoms.”
Barbecue is leader of a gang federation known as G9 Family and Allies, and he has previously launched powerful attacks that have crippled the country. In late 2022, he seized control of an area surrounding a key fuel terminal in the capital of Port-au-Prince for almost two months.
Why have the gangs become so powerful?
An estimated 200 gangs exist in Haiti, with 23 main ones believed to be operating in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince.
Up until recent years, they controlled some 60% of the capital, a number that has since grown to 80%, according to U.N. officials.
Smuggled firearms and ransom payments to kidnappers have allowed gangs to become more financially independent. That has increased their power as the state has weakened, and an underfunded and under-resourced police department has been unable to contain them.
“Present-day gangs enjoy a much higher degree of military capacity than those a decade ago,” according to the Global Initiative report. “This has largely been driven by the gangs’ ability to acquire high-caliber weapons.”
A 2023 U.N. report stated that recovered weapons destined for Haitian ports include “.50 caliber sniper rifles, .308 rifles, and even belt-fed machine guns.”