Nouveau ‘territoire perdu’ à l’approche de la fin de ‘mandat’ de Ariel Henry
Gang members have targeted a strategic neighbourhood in Haiti’s capital, in a four-day attack which has left residents trapped in their homes by flaming barricades and automatic gunfire.
Shots echoed throughout Solino on Thursday as thick columns of black smoke rose above the once peaceful neighborhood, as frantic residents called radio stations appealing for help.
“If police don’t come, we are dying today!” said one unidentified caller.
Pierre Esperance, of Human Rights Network RNDDH said that since the weekend, about two dozen deaths had been reported in the neighbourhood.
“Police are absent. The public physical force is not present,” he said. “And the population in [other] areas have blocked the streets in solidarity with Solino.”
Lita Saintil, a 52-year-old street vendor, said that had seen at least six bodies lying in the streets as she fled Solino on Thursday with her teenage nephew.
The homes around hers were torched by gangs, and she said she had been trapped in her house for hours by incessant gunfire.
“It’s very scary now,” she said. “I don’t know where I’m going.”
The identity of the attackers remained unclear. The community, which is home to thousands of people, was once inundated by gangs before a UN peacekeeping mission drove them out in the mid-2000s.
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