Recently, palace guards and police worked hard to retake some streets in Haiti’s capital after gangs caused massive attacks on at least three police stations.
The National Palace guards along with an armored truck tried to create a security perimeter around one of the three downtown stations after police fought off an attack by gangs late Friday.
It was reported that Sporadic gunfire continued on Saturday. The unrelenting gang attacks have paralyzed the country for more than a week and left it with decreasing supplies of basic goods. On Thursday, Haitian officials extended a state of emergency and nightly curfew as gangs continued to attack key state institutions.
When the gang violence began on the 29th of February, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is also acting president, was in Kenya and was unable to come to Port-au-Prince. The US had called on him to expedite a political transition as armed gangs sought his ouster.
Members of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) regional trade bloc, have been trying for months to get political actors in Haiti to agree to create an umbrella transitional unity government.
Many Haitians have been forced from their homes by the bloody street fighting and are presently seeking refuge in government buildings.
However, the Caricom statement states that, while regional leaders remain highly involved in trying to bring civil society groups and opposition parties together to form a unity government, the stakeholders are not yet where they have to be.
In February, Henry decided to have a general election by mid-2025, and the international community wanted to find some foreign armed forces who were ready to fight gang violence there.
In the meantime, Caricom has also pushed Henry to announce a power-sharing, consensus government, but the prime minister has yet to do so even as Haitian opposition parties and civil society groups are demanding his resignation.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Kenyan President William Ruto regarding the Haiti issues and the two men highlighted their assurance to a multinational security mission to restore order, says the State Department.
Henry went to Kenya to push for the UN-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country to fight gangs in Haiti. A Kenyan court, however, ruled in January that such a deployment would be illegal.
Henry is unable to return home. On Tuesday he arrived in Puerto Rico after he was unable to land in the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti.
The office of Dominican President Luis Abinader stated on Saturday, saying that Henry is not welcome in the Dominican Republic for safety reasons. The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, has shut its land border.
In Haiti, the statement defined the security situation as completely unsustainable and said it poses a threat to the safety and steadiness of the Dominican Republic.
The statement predicted that the situation could worsen even further if a peacekeeping force is not implemented urgently to restore order.
