Thousands of residents carrying backpacks and suitcases fled Tuesday on foot, on motorcycles or crammed into cars, from a neighborhood in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, attacked by an organized crime group.
“We are experiencing an extremely difficult situation. I don’t know where to go. I had to run away from home,” Elie Derisca, a resident of the Carrefour-Feuilles neighborhood, in the south of the Haitian capital, told reporters. News Agency France-Presse (AFP).
According to neighbors and police, the neighborhood is being attacked by an organized crime group led by Renel Destina -also known as Ti Lapli and wanted by the United States Federal Police (FBI, for its acronym in English).
“They robbed and burned houses” and “caused several deaths,” Derisca said. “The authorities did nothing to rescue us,” lamented the resident, adding that members of the group had occupied some houses.
The Haitian authorities had confirmed this Monday that houses in the neighborhood had been set on fire and that they had also received reports of deaths, which until now could not be verified.
At least 3,120 people fled the Carrefour-Feuilles neighborhood, according to an interim report from Haiti’s civil protection department. This figure could continue to rise, a source from the institution told AFP.
On Monday, many residents of the neighborhood demonstrated against insecurity and the Haitian National Police intervened to restore order in the area.
In a statement, the police promised to “continue mobilizing all the means to get rid of the bandits who want to sow problems in the communities.”
Haiti faces a serious humanitarian, political, judicial and security crisis, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch, which says the country needs to protect human rights.
About 150 criminal groups operate in Port-au-Prince and its metropolitan area, many of them under two of the main criminal alliances, the G-Pèp federation and the G9 alliance, the non-governmental organization said.
In the coming days, UN Secretary General António Guterres is expected to present options to the Security Council to send an international force to help restore security in Haiti.
The initiative arose in response to a call by Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has led the country since the July 2021 assassination of then-President Jovenel Moise.
The UN estimated that criminal groups in Haiti killed more than 2,000 people in the first half of 2023, kidnapped more than 1,000, and used sexual violence to terrorize the population.
The United Nations believes that nearly 60% of Haiti’s population of 11.5 million people lives below the poverty line. Nearly 195,000 people have been internally displaced due to violence since 2022, and tens of thousands have attempted to flee the country.
Source: TSF
