Haitians push for local solutions as insecurity and violence soar
With violence gripping the streets of Port-au-Prince and no neighbourhood spared from the insecurity wrought by armed gangs or critical, shortage of fuels virtually everyone in Haiti’s capital is living in a state of uncertainty, says resident Judes Jonathas.
“We don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” Jonathas, senior programme manager at the Mercy Corps humanitarian group in Haiti, recently told Al Jazeera in a video call, describing how not a day had gone by in the past week in which he hadn’t heard gunshot ring out.
“It’s as if we’re living minute to minute. We go out, we don’t know if we’ll be coming back.”
Haiti, which has faced years of, political instability is in the middle of a deepening crisis as powerful gangs recently seized control of a key petrol terminal in Port-au-Prince, cutting residents and healthcare facilities off from much-needed supplies.
Last week, acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry appealed to the international community to set up a “specialised armed force” to quell the violence, but civil society groups and rights advocates have said Henry has no legitimacy and they have rejected the prospect of foreign intervention.
“There is frustration, there is anger, there is resignation … it’s across all classes [of people],” said Jonathas, about the worsening conditions. “Most Haitians are traumatized
Haiti’s council of ministers authorised Henry late last week to seek assistance from “international partners” to help immediately deploy the “specialised armed force” to address a humanitarian crisis unfolding across the country as a result of the gangs.
The Caribbean nation this month reported its first cholera case in more than three years, and rights groups said the fuel blockade was impeding healthcare workers’ response. Many communities do not have access to clean water, already-high rates of hunger are set to worsen, and about 1.2 million children are at risk due to the cholera outbreak.
Bocchit Edmond, the Haitian ambassador to the United States, recently told the Reuters news agency that he hoped the US and Canada would “take the lead and move fast” on the country’s call for help.
The US Department of State Said on Saturday that it was reviewing Haiti’s request, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres a day later urged “the international community, including the members of the Security Council, to consider [it] as of matter of urgency”.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken the Biden administration “will accelerate the delivery of additional humanitarian relief to the people of Haiti”. Blinken on Wednesday also announced new visa restrictions on Haitian officials and others “involved in the operation of street gangs and other Haitian criminal organisations”. He did not specify which officials were targeted.
Brian Nichols, the assistant US secretary of state for Western hemisphere affairs, also travelled to port-au-prince on Wednesday for a series of meetings, saying Washington remained “committed to the health, safety, and security of the Haitian people”.
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