Comment PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — While gangs clash outside, Florient Clebert, his four sons and a daughter have been trapped inside their home for days. They have seen many neighbors killed. His brother was shot in the head last week and could not be treated in a hospital. Now the family is running out of food. Klebert, 39, an unemployed substitute teacher, failed to get to the bank to withdraw money. Government forces, meanwhile, seem to be doing nothing. “We are the masses and we are abandoned,” he told the Washington Post on Thursday, his voice shaking as gunfire rang out in the background. Dozens of people are dead amid days of violent clashes between warring gangs in Cité Soleil, the Haitian capital’s largest slum, and thousands more have been reported trapped without food or water, making it worse spiraling insecurity and humanitarian crises in this beleaguered Caribbean nation. The United Nations said at least 99 people have been killed and more than 130 injured since the current round of violence erupted last week. Jöel Janéus, the mayor of Cité Soleil, said gangs have burned most of the bodies and many families have few answers about the whereabouts of their loved ones. Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s office and the Interior Ministry have been in contact with local officials, Janeus told The Post, but have taken little action to end the bloodshed. He said he spent his own money on food and water for residents because the mayor’s office has no money. Janeus said he was hiding. “I get a lot of pressure and threats,” he said. The massacre in Cité Soleil, a community of more than 260,000 people in Port-au-Prince Bay, is part of a wave of violence and kidnappings for ransom by armed gangs amid worsening political instability since the still-unsolved killing a year ago. President Jovenel Moise. Haitian gangs use TikTok, Instagram, Twitter to recruit and terrorize The United Nations said this week that 1.5 million people in Port-au-Prince are trapped, “deprived of basic services and freedom of movement,” by gang violence. The UN Security Council voted on Friday to extend its political mission in Haiti for another year. Violence in Cité Soleil erupted last week between warring coalitions of gangs: G-Pèp and G-9, a federation of nine gangs led by Jimmy Chérizier. The United States has imposed sanctions on Chérizier, a former police officer who goes by the nickname Barbecue, for allegedly leading armed groups in “coordinated, brutal attacks in the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince.” In a video shared on social media this week, Chérizier held a long gun and proclaimed: “The fight to liberate the country begins against kidnappers and robbers.” The Haitian National Network for the Protection of Human Rights said that more than a dozen people have disappeared in Cité Soleil and that more than 120 houses have been destroyed by arson or by heavy machinery that it claimed the National Equipment Center provided to the G-9. said Kington Louis, director general of the National Equipment Center The Post that the allegations are false. He said one of the hub’s loaders was captured by the gangs who murdered the driver when he refused to do what they asked. In Haiti, the coronavirus and a man named Barbecue are testing the rule of law Doctors Without Borders called on the gangs to rescue civilians. THE ORGANIZATION said the need for food, water and medical aid is acute in Brooklyn, an isolated Cité Soleil neighborhood that residents have been unable to leave since July 8. “Along the only road to Brooklyn, we encountered decomposing or burning bodies,” Mumuza Muhido, the group’s head of mission in Haiti, said in a statement. “It could be people who were killed during the clashes or were trying to leave who were shot. It’s a real battlefield.” A fuel terminal near Cité Soleil temporarily suspended deliveries this week, exacerbating fuel shortages across the country and sparking protests that blocked major roads across the capital. Fuel deliveries resumed on Thursday. Janéus, the mayor, has been personally affected by the spiraling insecurity. In November, armed robbers descended on his home in Croix-des-Bouquets, a neighborhood east of Port-au-Prince that is a stronghold of the notorious 400 Mawozo gang, and kidnapped his wife. Bus kidnappings: Haitians are being held hostage by a wave of kidnappings Friends, family and residents of Cité Soleil came to help him raise the $40,000 ransom demanded by the gang. Janéus said he negotiated with Germine “Yonyon” Joly, the leader of 400 Mawozo, who runs the gang’s operations from a Port-au-Prince prison via cellphone. Jolly was transferred to the United States in May to face charges for his alleged roles in a criminal conspiracy to violate US export laws by smuggling firearms to Haiti and a hostage conspiracy in the kidnapping of 17 missionaries with an Ohioan. charity in Port-au-Prince. “My three children are now in the US,” Janéus said, “but my wife is with me in Haiti. Although he is seeing a psychologist, he is still unstable after the kidnapping.’
