At least 150 people have been killed in Port-au-Prince over the past week, the United Nations says, as the Haitian capital reels from a surge in gang violence.In a statement on Wednesday, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said more than half of the deaths – at least 55 percent – came “from exchanges of fire between gang members and police”.
Another 92 people were injured in the violence, and about 20,000 others have been forcibly displaced from their homes.
“Port-au-Prince’s estimated four million people are practically being held hostage as gangs now control all the main roads in and out of the capital,” Volker Turk, the high commissioner, said in the statement.
“The latest upsurge in violence in Haiti’s capital is a harbinger of worse to come. The gang violence must be promptly halted. Haiti must not be allowed to descend further into chaos.”
Haiti has reeled from years of violence as powerful armed groups – often with ties to the country’s political and business leaders – have vied for influence and control of territory.
But the situation worsened dramatically after the July 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, which created a power vacuum.
Earlier this year, the gangs launched attacks on prisons and other state institutions across Port-au-Prince, fuelling a renewed political crisis.
The campaign of violence led to the resignation of Haiti’s unelected prime minister, the creation of a transitional presidential council, and the deployment of a UN-backed, multinational police mission.
That Kenya-led police force – formally known as the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) – has failed to take control back from the gangs, however.
Only a fraction of the pla …