Thousands of Haitians prepared to sleep in schools and a theater around the main square of Port-au-Prince on Friday, after fresh attacks by armed gangs pushed already displaced people downtown to seek shelter wherever they could.
The Gran Ravine gang, led by Renel Destina, has besieged the densely populated neighborhood of Carrefour Feuilles for weeks, forcing aid workers to withdraw and thousands of people to flee their homes. Under-resourced police have struggled to contain the violence.
Dailove Pompilus, who was nine months pregnant, said she had no choice but to come to the Champ de Mars square after the gang attacked her home in Carrefour Feuilles, killing her three-year-old son.
Photo: Reuters
“My first child,” she said. “They burned down the house with him inside.”
Sophia Jean, another resident, fled with her eight-month-old baby and the clothes on her back. “I did not have time to take anything,” she said.
By nightfall, people took refuge at nearby schools and the Rex Theater.
Yves Penel, a theater manager speaking at the main square, said hundreds of people had arrived on Thursday overnight, and that they had created committees to manage food, water and hygiene.
“I grew up in Carrefour Feuilles,” Penel said. “We will do what we have to do.”
The UN estimates more than 10,000 people have been displaced in the last two weeks alone.
Thursday night marked the first time since the catastrophic 2010 earthquake that people have camped in the Champ de Mars, the capital’s main square that is home to historical monuments honoring heroes of the Haitian Revolution.
“They shot at us,” said Clerina Coffy, who fled Place Jeremie, a makeshift camp roughly 1.5km away, with her three children during Thursday night. “We are here because we have nowhere to go with the kids.”
Local reporters said some people looking to leave the city had gathered at a bus station while elsewhere civil defense groups reinforced barricades.
Although schools are set to resume this month, many are hosting displaced people, and the education ministry has called for the buildings to be protected.
Haiti’s gang warfare has left about 2,500 dead and 1,000 injured since January, according to the UN, amid widespread kidnappings, lynchings and sexual violence.
The UN Security Council is expected to vote on a plan to send international security assistance, which Haiti’s unelected government requested last October. A Kenyan delegation met with police chiefs last month, but a multinational force has yet to materialize.
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