Brutal gang violence, gasoline shortages, and skyrocketing food commodity prices have ground to a standstill in Haiti’s main city of Port-au-Prince. According to UN estimates, roughly 234 people have died or been injured in the violence, with additional claims of sexual abuse emerging. According to deputy mayor Jean Hislain Frederick, the violence started last week (Thursday) in the city’s Cite Soleil neighbourhood when two rival gangs engaged in brutal combat between themselves. The rioting quickly spread, and the entire city was in flames in no time.
Thousands of people are stuck without drinking water, food, or medical treatment, according to the humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontières, often known as Doctors Without Borders. The humanitarian organisation has pleaded with armed factions to protect civilians. The humanitarian organisation is also urging that the gangs allow them to reach the secluded Brooklyn neighbourhood that has been entirely cut off from the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Jeremy Laurence was cited as adding, ‘Most of the victims were not directly connected in gangs and were specifically targeted by gang elements. We’ve also heard additional reports of sexual assault’. Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer known as Barbecue, is one of the principal culprits and the commander of the G-9 gang. Cherizier was observed last month posting films on numerous social media platforms in order to brainwash and attract impressionable young people into joining his gang while spreading his ideology.
The law enforcement authorities’ passivity has only increased the gangs’ confidence. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has previously issued a warning that the city’s and country’s famine crisis was about to deteriorate. Ordinary Haitians are anticipated to escape to the neighbouring Dominican Republic or exit the Caribbean for the United States in large numbers.
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