Haiti: hundreds of residents flee their neighborhood plagued by gang war

Civil society organizations denounce the abandonment of residents by the authorities (illustration).

AFP - VALERIE BAERISWYL

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2 min

In Haiti, hundreds of residents of Martissant, Port-au-Prince, have fled their homes because of the war gangs are waging to control their neighborhood.

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With our correspondent in Port-au-Prince,

Amélie Baron

Sometimes with a small suitcase on their heads, most often without anything other than the clothes they wear on them, the inhabitants of Martissant had to flee their neighborhood in haste, in panic, under the threat of the gusts of fire. shots that gangs traded.

Civil protection has thus identified more than 560 displaced people in Carrefour, the neighboring town.

Martissant is located only a few hundred meters from the presidential palace.

Faced with the inaction of the authorities, civil society organizations denounce a total abandonment of these poorest citizens. 

" 

It is the entire population of Martissant and Fontamara who cannot return home and who are therefore obliged to take refuge in public places or at the side of the roads

 ", notes Marie Rosy Auguste Ducena, of the national network for the defense of human rights. According to her, other residents of Martissant have been stranded in their homes for two or three days, without being able to go buy something to eat, because they would not be allowed to leave their neighborhood.  

Several people were killed, vehicles and houses were set on fire, but the precise toll of this violence between gangs remains impossible to establish.

Access to the neighborhood is still very dangerous indeed and, due to the lack of freedom of movement on the national road that crosses Martissant, the entire southern half of Haiti is cut off from the rest of the country.

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  • Haiti

  • Criminality