Haiti is once again facing a wave of chaos fueled by ongoing gang wars, which have spiralled since the 2021 assassination of the country’s president.
Gang leaders have grown increasingly violent and empowered, taking advantage of power vacuums in the Caribbean nation to grow in strength.
As gangs continue to rampage across Haiti, the country’s embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry remains blocked out of the country due to the closing of the airport.
Here’s a look at how Haiti got to this point:
January 2010 — Haiti is rocked by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, killing about 220,000 people and thrusting Haiti into a humanitarian crisis.
July 2021 — Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is assassinated in his home by a group of foreign mercenaries in a plot that authorities say involved elite Haitian police officers. The slaying captures the world’s attention and triggers the spiral of gang violence that has deepened month by month.
January 2023 — After Haiti’s government fails to hold elections, citing unprecedented levels of gang violence, Haiti is stripped of its last democratically elected officials. Critics say it exacerbated democratic decay and turned the country into a de-facto “dictatorship.”
Feb. 29, 2024 — Haitian gangs carry out a series of coordinated attacks across Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, killing at least four police officers. Powerful gang leader Jimmy Chérizier, better known as Barbecue, claims responsibility for the attacks. Chérizier says he aimed to capture police and government officials and block the return of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was in Kenya to push for the United Nations-backed international police force to fight gangs in Haiti.
March 1 — Henry signs an agreement with Kenya to deploy 1,000 police officers to the Caribbean nation to combat gang violence, a painstaking process delayed by a court that ruled the deployment is unconstitutional.
March 2 — Gangs in Haiti continue to carry out attacks, this time storming two of the country’s biggest prisons and freeing more than 4,000 inmates. It prompts police to urgently appeal for help as they say security forces are overwhelmed.
March 3 — Haiti’s government declares a state of emergency and a nighttime curfew, hoping to control the explosion of violence.
March 4 — Heavily armed gangs try to seize control of Haiti’s main international airport, shutting down flights and fueling chaos as Prime Minister Ariel Henry remains out of the country following a trip to Kenya. It prompts many in Haiti to wonder where their leader is.
March 5 — Henry lands in Puerto Rico after gang leader Chérizier effectively declares war on him. The prime minister was on a charter flight destined for the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, but the flight was diverted after the country announced it was suspending air traffic with Haiti.
March 6 — With embattled Henry still locked out of his country, Haitian politicians begin to form alliances and vie for power. Henry faces increasing pressures to resign from both within Haiti and internationally.
March 7 — Haiti remains paralyzed as gangs have continued their rampage. The country extends its nighttime curfew and state of emergency measures. Meanwhile, the country’s leader Henry stays silent while he travels the world and attempts to negotiate a way back into his country, something that appears increasingly unlikely.
The U.S. Embassy in Haiti is urging American citizens to depart the country amid gang violence and unrest. What’s going on?
Haiti is on the brink of a civil war as an alliance of gangs threatens “genocide” to citizens there and has compromised the country’s infrastructure. The U.S. Embassy in Haiti has issued two alerts this week urging American citizens in the country to leave immediately. Here’s why Haiti is in a state of emergency and what Americans there should know.
🇭🇹 What’s happening
The Haitian government says that gang violence has created a “deterioration in security” in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Armed gang members have assassinated and kidnapped “peaceful citizens” and carried out gruesome attacks on government institutions.
Gangs have reportedly killed at least five police officers and set fire to Port-au-Prince police stations since the end of February. The latest target was a police station in the Saloman market, an open-air spot with heavy foot traffic. They have also set fire to a peace court in Croix-des-Bouquets.
On Saturday night, two Haitian government officials told ABC News, thousands of inmates escaped Haiti’s largest prison, the National Penitentiary, after a planned attack by armed gunmen. They said that out of about 4,000 inmates, less than 100 remained at the facility.
Another prison was under siege the same night in Croix-des-Bouquets, an area that the Haitian National Police says is under gang control.
On Sunday, Haiti declared a 72-hour state of emergency and imposed a curfew to try “to restore the order and to take appropriate measures in order to regain control of the situation,” according to a press release. The state of emergency has now been extended by a month.
On Monday, gang members tried to seize control of Toussaint Louverture International Airport, Haiti’s main airport, before being thwarted by security forces.
That same day, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti issued a security alert advising Americans to leave Port-au-Prince immediately. On Wednesday, the embassy issued the same security alert in response to the violence.
Also on Wednesday, the National Human Right Defense Network reported that more than 20 other buildings in Haiti have been set on fire or looted.
What’s causing the violence?
Monday’s alert was triggered by violence that escalated on Feb. 29, the day Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry left for a regional summit in Kenya to push for the United Nations to deploy multinational police reinforcements to quell the violence.
Haiti is still reeling from the July 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. The country has not had any parliamentary or general elections since then. Henry became prime minister with international support after Moïse’s death but was supposed to leave office in February and relinquish his power to newly elected officials.
Instead, he agreed to a power-sharing deal with political opposition groups and vowed to hold general elections by mid-2025.
But Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, an ex-police officer and gang leader of G9 — an alliance of several gangs — has threatened a “civil war” among Haitians that “will lead to genocide” if Henry does not leave his position.
“Today, we announce that all armed groups are going to act to get Prime Minister Ariel Henry to step down,” Chérizier said in a video posted on social media, according to CBS News, right before the latest round of attacks.
“We will use all strategies to achieve this goal,” he said. “We claim responsibility for everything that’s happening in the streets right now.”
According to CNN, the U.S. is pushing for “urgent” movement toward a political transition. The Miami Herald said that the U.S. tried to persuade Henry to step down midflight Tuesday as he was returning to Haiti.
🇺🇲 How can American citizens leave Haiti?
While the U.S. Embassy in Haiti called for U.S. citizens to depart the country as soon as possible by “commercial or other privately available transportation options,” the embassy said it cannot help private U.S. citizens with air travel. Instead, it advised people to call airlines that fly in and out of Haiti. But many commercial airlines have suspended their flights. The embassy has also encouraged people to keep checking its website for alerts that may give options for leaving the country.
The alert says that if you do have to travel, avoid crowds, keep a low profile, stay alert, travel by day, carry proper ID, and prepare to shelter in place “for an extended time period.”
The State Department, which in July issued a “do not travel” warning for Haiti, echoed the U.S. Embassy’s advice to U.S. citizens in its own security alert on X on Wednesday.
“Monitor local news and information on security conditions from commercial transportation providers and arrange to leave Haiti when security conditions and commercial transportation options permit doing so,” the post read.