A new injection of about 150 foreign officers arrived in Haiti this weekend to bolster international security forces charged with reigning in the powerful and well-armed gangs that have brought so much misery to the country.
But if the past is any guide, this latest infusion won't make much of a difference.
Back-to-back massacres that killed more than 300 people, followed by Christmas Eve attacks on Haiti's largest public hospital, underscored the Haitian government's growing lack of control over the country's deepening crisis.
A press conference to announce the reopening of a government hospital closed for nine months due to gang violence was hit by another gang attack, killing two reporters and a police officer.
More than twenty journalists who were caught in an ambush were trapped for two hours before being rescued by intervening on seven injured colleagues. Witnesses said several doctors at the hospital tore off their clothes to fashion tourniquets and use tampons to staunch the bleeding as they ran for their lives. Journalists escaped by climbing the back wall.
“There was blood everywhere and on our clothes,” said Jephte Bazil, a reporter for the online news agency Machann Zen Haïti, adding that the hospital had “nothing to treat the victims.”
The shooting at the hospital followed two massacres that killed more than 350 people in separate parts of the country and brought into sharp focus the failures and shortcomings of local authorities and international security forces deployed to protect innocent civilians.
One of the massacres last month took place in the poor, sprawling, gang-controlled Port-au-Prince neighborhood, where a lack of police meant that for three days, elderly people were dismembered and thrown into the sea without the authorities' knowledge. According to the UN, at least 207 people were killed from December 6 to December 11.
Around the same time, another three-day killing spree took place 70 miles north in Petite Rivière. Community leaders say 150 people were killed when gang members and vigilantes attacked each other.
The violence is part of a brutal bloodbath in Haiti over the past two months, exposing the fragility of its interim government, raising concerns about the viability of the US-brokered security mission and leaving behind a planned transition to elections and greater stability. leadership is on the verge of collapse.
With President-elect Donald J. Trump poised to take the reins of an international deployment criticized as ineffective and underfunded, Haiti's future has never looked bleaker.
Justice Minister Patrick Pelissier said he believes the 150 soldiers, mostly from Guatemala, should help turn the tide. He emphasized that some territories under the control of the gangs have been recaptured and the government is paying attention to the displaced.
“The state is not broken,” said Mr. Pelissier. “The state is there. The state is working.”
But many experts believe Haiti is a failed state, with various factions of the interim government embroiled in political infighting with no clear strategy to deal with worsening violence and allow for elections scheduled for this year.
“Political disputes are turning violent,” said Diego Da Rin, Haiti analyst at the International Crisis Group. “Teams know very well when it's the right moment to switch from defensive mode to offensive mode. They flex their muscles when necessary.”
The gang attacks have also highlighted the weakness of the US-backed Multinational Security Assistance mission, which began arriving in Haiti last June and has several hundred men, mostly Kenyan police.
The mission was supposed to have up to 2,500 officers, but with little international funding, the force is significantly undersized and understaffed to deal with the many areas where the gangs are based.
Several experts said the Christmas Eve killings gave a sense of government incompetence. The event announcing the reopening of the hospital was held in a gang fort with almost no security. Even when people were attacked, it took at least an hour for the police to respond, even though their headquarters were nearby.
Dr. Duckenson Lorthe Blema, the country's health minister who fell ill and was delayed, believes that he was the intended target.
“I'm not crazy — I wanted to do well and it went badly,” Dr. Blema, who was fired after the attack, said in an interview. “It turned into a fiasco. I am the scapegoat.”
Dr. Blema insisted that he had asked for a police presence at the event and did not know why there was so little protection. He defended the hospital's lack of supplies, saying he intended to “gradually” open the facility as a non-gunshot wound outpatient clinic.
The Minister of Justice admitted that there was no coordination between the Ministry of Health and the police and that no proper security assessment had been carried out beforehand.
“Neighborhoods are run by gangs and the police are working to rebuild them,” he said, noting that while the crisis in the capital and rural Artibonite Valley was severe, much of the country was functioning normally.
Haiti's descent into chaos was largely triggered by the July 2021 assassination of its last elected president, Jovenel Moise. Gangs that make money from illegal checkpoints, extortion and kidnapping have used the political vacuum to expand their territories.
With no elected national leaders, the country is governed by a transitional council made up of rival political parties, and the interim presidency rotates among its members.
The latest surge in violence began on November 11 when the council replaced the prime minister, and gangs took advantage of the political turmoil to shoot down US commercial airliners and escalate their rampage. Haiti's main airport has since been closed.
More than 5,300 people were killed in Haiti last year, and the total number of people forced to leave their homes now exceeds 700,000. International Organization for Migration.
Gang checkpoints and ambushes disrupted food supplies and the nonprofit group Mercy Corp, It estimates that around 5 million people – half the country's population – face severe food insecurity.
New Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé announced a pay rise for police officers in his only press conference since taking office nearly two months ago and said he was committed to restoring the rule of law.
The prime minister and members of the presidential council declined to comment for this article.
The President of the Council, Leslie Wolter, in his speech on New Year's Eve, insisted that the elections will be held this year as well, but compared the current situation to a war. A police spokesman said he had no comment.
The commander of the Kenyan-led mission, Godfrey Otunge, also did not respond to requests for comment, complaining that the mission's successes were not publicized enough.
“Haiti's future is bright,” he said in a recent message posted online.
The US State Department, which has allocated $600 million for the Kenyan mission, has defended its record, noting that a recent operation with police resulted in the death of a high-profile gang member.
Two police stations have recently reopened and the Kenyan mission now has a permanent presence near the main port, which has long been controlled by the gangs, the State Department said.
The agency says that the US government sent several materials in December.
But without significantly greater foreign aid, experts say Haiti's deteriorating trajectory is unlikely to be reversed.
“The Haitian government really doesn't know exactly what they're doing,” says Sophie Rutenbar, a visiting scholar at New York University who is helping to direct United Nations operations in Haiti until 2023. worse options.”
Some of the injured journalists blamed gangs and the government for the disaster that cost precious lives.
“None of this would have happened if the state had taken its responsibilities,” said Velondi Miracle, who was shot seven times in the leg, temple and mouth. “The state is a legal force and should not allow pirates access to places where the state cannot respond.”
Andre Paultre Reported from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.