The violence hitting Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, continued on Friday March 1, according to several sources cited by AFP, with gangs even claiming to want to overthrow Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

Since the start of these tensions on Thursday, at least four police officers have been killed and dozens of people have been injured, in a country in the grip of a serious political, security and humanitarian crisis.

Gangs, united under the label “Living Together”, have been carrying out coordinated attacks in the capital since Thursday, targeting strategic sites such as the civil prison, the international airport, and police buildings.

On Thursday, a powerful gang leader claimed to be acting to “obtain the departure of Prime Minister Ariel Henry”.

The latter is not in Port-au-Prince: he signed an agreement on Friday in Nairobi to send Kenyan police officers to the island, as part of an international mission supported by the United Nations aimed at fighting against the violence of criminal gangs which is plaguing the country.

On site, around ten police officers protested in front of their general management premises, demanding that everything possible be done to recover the bodies of their four police colleagues killed on Thursday.

Streets in Port-au-Prince were blocked Friday by barricades of burning tires.

In hospitals, the counting of the injured begins.

A source from the Hospital of the State University of Haiti, one of the largest public hospitals in the capital, said that no fewer than 25 injured people had been received Thursday.

Also read: In Haiti, “Port-au-Prince is like a city at war”

In the two Médecins sans frontières (MSF) centers, located in the Tabarre and Cité Soleil districts, if the admission figures are stable at at least fifteen per day, "the injured come from everywhere now. "There are no more quiet areas," Mumuza Muhindo, the NGO's head of mission, told AFP.

“It is becoming complicated for our staff to go to our centers,” he added.

Humanitarians are also concerned about the supply of medicines.

“We have containers stuck at customs. We were unable to get them out yesterday (Thursday) because of the unrest. If the situation remains as it is, it will be complicated to continue to maintain our activities,” he said. he warned.

At Toussaint-Louverture international airport, despite the shooting nearby, flights to the United States and the Dominican Republic resumed on Friday, a source close to the airlines told AFP.

Faced with "heavy gunfire" and "traffic disruptions" near the airport, the American embassy announced on its website that it would interrupt transfers between its facilities and the airport.

With AFP

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