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Haiti: "There is a genocide brewing here and we are letting the situation rot"

Audio 06:15

Schoolchildren run for safety as they leave school amid gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 3, 2023. REUTERS - RALPH TEDY EROL

Text by: Mikaël Ponge

4 mins

Kidnappings, rapes, murders, shootings in the middle of homes, etc., Haitians are facing "nightmarish violence" from armed gangs who control almost all of Port-au-Prince, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk.

At least 60 people were killed last week in clashes between rival gangs in the capital, according to the National Human Rights Defense Network, a Haitian NGO.

We must avoid “a massacre à la Rwanda(ise)”, declared earlier this week Dr. Jean William Pape, member of the WHO scientific committee, professor of medicine at Cornell University in New York, director and founder GHESKIO centers in Haiti.

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RFI: What is the situation today in Haiti?

Dr. Jean William Pape

: There is a completely desperate situation in Haiti.

We no longer have a government, we no longer have a state, the situation of insecurity is getting worse every day, we see more and more that it affects all sectors of society, children can no longer go to school, there is not a single group in society that has not been kidnapped, doctors in particular.

I believe there are more than ten who have been kidnapped since the beginning of the year, the priests are kidnapped, the teachers are kidnapped, the small street vendors are kidnapped.

So it's a phenomenon that no one escapes.

This is the cry of alarm.

It should have been launched several months ago.

► Also to listen: 

Let's come back to this term Rwanda.

Why the reference to this country?

We have many characteristics in common with

We have roughly the same number in terms of population, we have a more or less comparable GDP and a very mountainous country of approximately the same area as Haiti.

And what is happening in our country today is that there are a lot of large caliber weapons in circulation, in the hands of civilians and armed groups.

The police are completely powerless, we have an army which is under-manned and under-armed.

And there is also the incitement to violence on social networks.

Do you remember the

, that's how it started.

We are heading towards a civil war which will cause a considerable massacre, precisely because of the protagonists who are on the ground, the political differences, and also the quantity of weapons which are in Haiti.

► Also to listen: 

The international community has decided, for the time being, not to intervene militarily in the country, but to work towards a policy of sanctions against political personnel, as well as against companies and the economic sector.

Patrols are sent in particular by sea and air patrols, Canada's role.

How do you judge this attitude and this response from the international community?

For Canada, it would have been more correct and more honest to say that they do not have the experience of fighting against armed groups.

So, I don't think it's very serious, because since the sanctions, one would have thought that the situation would have improved, in fact, it has deteriorated.

It's as if we had given the green light or pressed the accelerator to make this country hell.

I will tell you frankly, the first people responsible for the current crisis are clearly the Haitians who, because of their petty interests, cannot come to an agreement, even on a subject as burning as insecurity, that is clear.

But the international community also bears a great deal of responsibility, when this deterioration took place before its eyes while the country was occupied, in a certain sense.

And so you also have some responsibility.

Help us, we will do it together, because we Haitians are also responsible.

We will do it together, and for the moment, we cannot do it alone, because Haiti is completely forgotten.

We're talking about Ukraine, we're talking about the earthquake in Turkey, but there's a genocide brewing here and we're letting the situation rot, everyone at that point will be on their knees, and I think it is preferable to avoid precisely this massacre, which worsens practically every day.

► To read also: 

Police face gangs in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, March 3, 2023. © RALPH TEDY EROL / REUTERS

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