Scores are dead, others injured as gang violence erupts in Haitian capital’s largest slum

Dozens of people have been killed and more than a hundred injured in a new round of deadly violence in Haiti’s largest slum that is aggravating fuel shortages, raising transportation costs and making an already troubling humanitarian crisis even worse.

Local humanitarian and human-rights activists say it’s still unclear how many people have been killed in the latest carnage, but Joël Janéus, the interim mayor of Cité Soleil, told the Miami Herald that at least 52 people have been killed and 110 injured since Thursday.

“It’s grave. It’s difficult for the population,” he said. “All of the areas are blocked. Water can’t come, food can’t come. There are a lot of problems here and people are dying of hunger because they can’t get out. A lot of people are victims. A lot of people are injured, a lot people are in the hospital and they can’t go on with their activities.”

As of Tuesday morning the sounds of automatic gunfire could be heard in many neighborhoods of the impoverished slum, which has a population of about 300,000 people and is located near the capital’s port.

“The situation is really tense,” said Jean-Gilbert Ndong, who works with the French medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, which has an emergency medical clinic in the Drouillard area of the community.

Ndong said the situation is especially difficult in an area known as Brooklyn. The medical charity, with the help of two foreign priests who work in the area, was able to evacuate 10 people who were injured from gunshots, but many more are in need of help.

“This population is really stuck and cannot move out,” he said. “They used to receive water on trucks, but the road is blocked and they have no access to food, no electricity, no access to health facilities. We are making an appeal to everyone to allow for a humanitarian corridor to provide medical care.”

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Since Thursday, the medical charity has treated about 60 gunshot victims, most of them victims hit by random bullets from gang fights.

The clash involves a newly created coalition of armed gangs known as “G-pèp-la,” led by Gabriel Jean Pierre, from Cité Soleil, and the rival G-9 federation led by Jimmy Chérizier, a former police officer known as Barbecue.

The National Human Rights Defense Network said its investigation shows that the clash was triggered by a 3 a.m. Thursday attack against the Brooklyn area of Cité Soleil by the G-9 gang federation with the objective of dislodging leader Jean Pierre, also known as Ti Gabriel or Gabo, and putting the area under G-9’s control. To achieve this, other gang members agreed to combine forces with Chérizier, and use heavy machinery to destroy homes on behalf of his federation.

The human rights group said it has registered at least 65 deaths, including 21 individuals who were burned to death. In addition to the deaths, at least 127 houses have been destroyed or burned down by alleged G-9 gang members. The human rights group said the G-9 coalition has been behind at least three attacks against the Brooklyn area since May, with the latest being the gravest.

Janéus appealed for police presence in the area. He said up until now the Haitian government has done little to help people relocate or to calm the situation.

“It’s organized violence,” Janéus said, noting that the gangs are fighting for control of territory inside the community. “You have the children of Cité Soleil destroying one another.”

By Monday, the violence in Cité Soleil had spread into La Saline, the neighborhood that was the site of a 2018 massacre. By 4 a.m. Tuesday, those who could flee had left the area, the latest exodus triggered by the powerfully armed kidnapping gangs.

They are now among the more than 20,000 Haitians who, according to the United Nations, have been displaced from their homes since May by gang conflict.

Unlike the last round of violence east of the capital in late April and into May that involved the 400 Mawozo and Chen Mechan gangs, the latest clash has those gangs reinforcing one of the other gangs in the ongoing Cité Soleil clash, a worrisome trend that could lead to one armed coalition controlling all of the capital.

The violence erupted as the U.S. State Department announced additional aid for Haiti’s police forces. The Biden administration has been reluctant to acknowledge that the security situation in Haiti is growing worse.

On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council is scheduled to vote on the future of its presence in Haiti. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is recommending an increase in the staffing of the U.N. Integrated Office in Haiti. Negotiations are ongoing on the future role of the U.N. in Haiti. The Security Council, which includes the United States, is weighing proposals ranging from deploying a new peacekeeping mission to adding U.N. police officers capable of training and accompanying Haitian police in operations.

In its latest report, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs decried the growing gang violence, which it said “has reached new levels since the end of April 2022.” The UN. office said humanitarian groups in the Haitian capital are being hindered from carrying out lifesaving assistance because gangs have blocked many of the roads.

“The situation is spiraling out of control,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, country director for the United Nations’ World Food Program in Port-au-Prince.

Speaking at a World Food Program media conference on Tuesday, Bauer said that as many as 1 million people in the capital are suffering from deep hunger and “the situation is getting worse by the day.”

“People are not able to work, people are not able to sell their produce and at the same time food prices are increasing,” he said. “These are two phenomena that compound each other and Haiti is an import-dependent country. It’s really at the forefront of what’s going on.”

Haiti is also seeing the effects of the rise in global food and fuel prices linked to the conflict in Ukraine. While overall inflation in Haiti has been running about 26% annually, the cost of food has been rising by 52%, Bauer said, quoting Haitian government statistics. The cost of imported rice, for example., has gone up by 40%, cooking oil by 88% and wheat flour by 68% from a year ago.

“We are not in famine in Haiti now but we do have 1.3 million people who are one step away from famine and I’m very concerned,” Bauer said, highlighting that the northwest and southern regions of the country are most at risk. Farmers in these agricultural regions have not been able to get their produce to market in Port-au-Prince because gangs have cut off access to the national roads.

The World Food Program has been using a helicopter to move humanitarian aid workers around the country and a vessel capable of ferrying food trucks to deliver more than 2,000 tons of food since April. But even that has become risky. Bauer said two weeks ago the food-truck ferry was hit by two stray bullets out of Cité Soleil.

“Over the past few days accessing the port has been a challenge,” he said.

Gangs, which have now acquired access to a boat, have also shot directly at other boats on the water.

“We are still able to deliver. It’s just become more complicated, and more expensive and we are taking a high level of risk,” Bauer said, noting that the World Food Program has had to increase the monthly amount of cash it gives to families to help them buy food from $100 to $120.

The eruption of violence has disrupted the work at the Varreux oil terminal at the port in Cité Soleil, preventing a fuel vessel from docking. The result is fuel has become increasingly difficult to get, leading to gasoline prices rising in some areas to as much as $10 a gallon.