The images are terrifying: around fifteen bodies, riddled with bullets, bloodied, lying on the road in one of the main arteries of one of the hitherto preserved districts of Port-Prince: Pétion-Ville. It is the last place where Haitians could still walk without fear of being kidnapped or killed by a stray bullet. The banks remained open there while in other districts of the city, all the banking establishments lowered the curtain, the control of the gangs being total. Residents report that during the night from Sunday to Monday, armed groups invaded the neighborhoods of Laboule and Thomassin, in the heights of Pétion-ville.
According to Le Nouvelliste, several private residences were looted in the same area. The gangsters systematically ransacked his residences, often luxury ones. High-ranking members of the Haitian administration were the targets of this looting: Vomar Demesyeux, judge of the Superior Court of Auditors, for example. A bank, a gas station and private businesses were the targets of these attacks. What is most striking in what residents of these neighborhoods report is the absence of any police reaction. According to Le Nouvelliste, a local resident saw a police tank trying to go to Thomassin. But he was unable to get there, blocked by the roadblocks erected by thugs in the streets leading to the neighborhood.
Already on Friday, a wind of panic had blown through the Pétion-Ville district. A witness, who prefers to remain anonymous, reports that around two o’clock in the afternoon, “a rumor of a demonstration coming from Delmas provoked an immediate reaction. All the stores lowered their iron curtains, traffic stopped and everyone tried to reach their homes as quickly as possible. Once again residents report the total absence of police on the streets. “The only visible police officer was the one on duty in front of the police station,” reports a disappointed resident.
The gang collective created at the end of February, which calls itself Viv Ansamm, had promised in a press release that it would organize a market in Pétion-Ville, which probably fueled the panic on Friday. But now, the funerary activity of the gangs in Pétion-Ville has been proven with the discovery of the bodies of the Panamerican.
Friday evening, the Haitian National Police attempted an operation in the stronghold of Jimmy Chérizier, alias Barbecue. This is the lower Delmas area. But their only objective was to unblock the roads and not to intervene against Jimmy Chérizier.
In the port area over which the Haitian authorities claimed to have regained control for a week, several lootings of containers took place. The most dramatic: a Unicef container which contained medical equipment intended for children suffering from serious illnesses and whose care is greatly called into question by the situation. In a press release, the representative of Unicef in Haiti declared that “depriving children of vital medical products while the health system is collapsed is a violation of their fundamental rights. This incident occurs at a critical time, when children need it most.”
