Haiti’s gangs began an offensive to topple the government on 29 February, storming and ransacking police stations, prisons and hospitals and laying siege to strategic locations, including the port and airport.
The prime minister, Ariel Henry, who was out of the country when the rebellion began, has found himself stranded in Puerto Rico, with one US official warning last week that his unpopular government could fall “at any time”.
The gang insurrection intensified late on Friday as dozens of criminals converged on Champ de Mars, a palm-dotted downtown area of Port-au-Prince that is home to government ministries, embassies, consulates, banks and hotels, as well as Haiti’s supreme court and official presidential residence.
Gang members reportedly torched the interior ministry, which was built after the 2010 earthquake that destroyed much of the capital, and opened fire on the presidential palace before being pushed back by troops.
“If the Champ de Mars falls … it’s the end,” one police officer warned in an interview with the AyiboPost news website.
Things are at a massive tipping point. Haiti is about to lose what little government they have left. All the gangs care about is power. It will be total anarchy.
What makes this a “gang insurrection” instead of e.g. a “civil war?”
I’m guessing because there are lots of different factions with different ideologies, they just all share the goal of toppling the government.
Sounds like we’re about to lose any sort of order and control in Haiti. Definitely good to get the non-essential folks out.
But you’d think even Haitian gangs aren’t quite so dumb as to actually attack Americans and the embassy. I bet there’s enough weapons and ammunition on site to take over the entire country if need be. And the US is not exactly known to be chill about people attacking their personnel. I’d steer well clear of that embassy if I was them.
Your description of US embassies sounds more based on movies than anything else. In Benghazi the ambassador was killed by supposedly an angry mob. Nothing much was ever done about it. Those places are not heavily stocked with weapons and ammo. They are meant to be evacuated, not defended. And in the case of Haiti, what are they going to do after the fact. These are gangs, they would have to take over and occupy the whole country to do much.
