'It's very scary now': Fear grips Haiti's Port-au-Prince amid gang violence

[Judi Lynn]

A key community in Haiti’s capital has been under siege for days as violence escalates.



A motorcyclist drives through a burning barricade in Port-au-Prince. [Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters]
Published On 19 Jan 2024
19 Jan 2024

Gang members in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince have raided a key community that is home to numerous police officers and has been under siege for four days in a continuing attack, with residents fearful of the violence spreading throughout the city.

The sound of automatic weapons echoed throughout Solino on Thursday as thick columns of black smoke rose above the once peaceful neighbourhood where frantic residents kept calling radio stations asking for help.

“If police don’t come, we are dying today!” said one unidentified caller.

Lita Saintil, a 52-year-old street vendor, said that she fled Solino on Thursday with her teenage nephew after being trapped in her house for hours by incessant gunfire.

More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/1/19/fear-grips-haitis-port-au-prince-amid-gang-violence

[marble falls]

1. Almost two hundred years of French and US foriegn policy is squarely to blame. How many nations on ...

... this planet have had to literally pay the price to the slave owners of every single citizen at their liberation - a debt Haiti paid in full over almost one hundred years? It says more about the strength of the average Haitian that they survive these continuing outrages than than it does about the pitiful humanitarian efforts of two of the richest and powerful nations that directly caused this disaster.