Haitian PM says he was targeted in assassination attempt

DAILY KIDNAPPINGS

The growing reach of criminal gangs across the country is undermining hopes of improving the living conditions for ordinary Haitians, who are victims of daily kidnappings by ruthless groups.

Two years after the departure of the last United Nations police officers from the country, the prime minister insisted that Haitian forces will be able to restore security.

“So far I have never asked for foreign troops,” Henry told AFP, although he said that the international community should support the country’s police in training “and possibly equipment”.

“With our men, with the police, we are going to get there, we have to get there,” he said.

At least 950 kidnappings were recorded in Haiti in 2021, according to the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, an organisation based in Port-au-Prince.

Last October, 17 North Americans linked to a Christian aid group were kidnapped after visiting an orphanage near the capital in an area controlled by the so-called 400 Mawozo, one of Haiti’s most powerful gangs. The last of the hostages were released last month.

In April, 10 people, including two French clerics, were kidnapped and held for 20 days by 400 Mawozo in the same region.

In August, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake killed more than 2,200 people and destroyed or heavily damaged tens of thousands of homes in a nation still recovering from 2010’s devastating quake.

Adding to the country’s misery, 75 people were killed last month in an explosion while trying to siphon gasoline from a tanker that had crashed in Haiti’s second largest city of Cap-Haitien.

And even as the prime minister was reporting the attempt on his life, security officials said that 11 people – one of them a police officer – were killed in a foiled escape attempt from the country’s second largest jail at Croix-des-Bouquets, just outside the Haitian capital.

Three more police officers were seriously wounded in the incident.

Last February, more than 400 inmates escaped from the same prison in broad daylight, an event that resulted in the deaths of 25 people, including the jail’s director.