PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A powerful gang coalition has launched new attacks on Haiti’s capital, driving dozens of families from homes as police vowed Wednesday to hold the gunmen back.
Authorities evacuated students at a Catholic school in western Port-au-Prince as heavy gunfire continued in the area near the renowned Oloffson Hotel, which once attracted international celebrities in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Meanwhile, cries for help emerged on social media for a group of priests trapped inside a church in the Carrefour-Feuilles neighborhood, which endured much of the attack by the Viv Ansanm gang coalition that began late Tuesday.
“They’re trying to take more areas, but police are there, making sure that doesn’t happen,” Lionel Lazarre, deputy spokesman for Haiti’s National Police, told a press conference.
He said police have new plans to fight gangs that already control 85% of Haiti’s capital, but declined to provide details, citing safety reasons.
Lazarre noted that police recently seized 10,000 bullets, weapons and drugs from a minibus in the town of Mirebalais, northeast of Port-au-Prince. He said two of the four people carrying the ammunition were lynched by a mob on Sunday, while the others escaped.
The latest attacks come days after William O’Neill, the U.N.’s human rights expert on Haiti, visited the troubled Caribbean country.
“The risk of the capital falling under gang control is palpable,” O’Neill said Tuesday, even as Haitian police work with a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenyan police to help quell gang violence.
O’Neill and others have called for a reinforcement of the mission, which the U.S. has said lacks funding and personnel.
Last year, more than 5,600 people were reported killed across Haiti. Gang violence has left more than one million homeless in recent years.
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Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed.
