Civilians and police tried on Thursday to invest the offices of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in the aftermath of a new deadly attack on members of the police.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
A new murderous attack on police officers in Haiti caused an agitated demonstration on Thursday, January 26, in Port-au-Prince, in the heart of a country plagued by the violence of the gangs.
Wednesday, “bandits” attacked a police station three times in Liancourt, a town located a hundred kilometers north of the capital, and “during the third attack”, armed men attacking “On all fronts” “killed six of our agents,” said police manager Jean Bruce Myrtil on Thursday morning at the microphone of a local radio. Among the six police officers killed, four, injured earlier during the day, were “released” by gang members of the clinic where they were treated “in order to execute them,” added the police manager.
In reaction to these assassinations, civilians and police officers, exasperated, paraded on Thursday in the streets of Port-au-Prince, erected barricades, tried to invest the offices of the contested Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Envahi The Toussaint-Louverture International Airport track, noted a correspondent from the France-Presse agency. The demonstrators, however, failed to reach the diplomatic fair where the head of government was, returning from a summit abroad. Air traffic has nevertheless been disrupted, while schools have closed their doors in the capital. 2>
fourteen police officers killed by gangs since the beginning of the year
The Director General of the National Police of Haiti, Frantz Elbé, said that his forces are “on maximum alert (…) from this Thursday, January 26”. Police had announced on his social networks the death of “six valiant police officers”.
A senior American diplomatic official, Brian Nichols, reacted on Twitter by saying “to condemn the violence of the gangs”, and called “calm” in Haiti.
fourteen police officers have been killed by armed gangs since the beginning of the year, according to a statement made by The National Haitian police union. The unionist Lionel Lazzare called on officials to adopt measures to protect agents.
The violence of gangs and humanitarian emergency have reached levels “never seen for decades” in Haiti, had alarmed on Tuesday the United Nations agency, insisting on the need to send an international force , a request on the table of the Security Council for three months, without result.