In response to violent gangs that have taken over most of the city and are now spreading into neighboring provinces, Haiti has declared a state of emergency that now covers the entire country, according to a spokesman for Prime Minister Garry Conille’s office yesterday.
On March 3, under the leadership of Conille’s predecessor Ariel Henry, the populous Ouest department of Haiti—home to the capital Port-au-Prince—was placed under a state of emergency due to a sharp rise in violence that rendered the city immobile and resulted in two prison breaks in which thousands of prisoners escaped.
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The agricultural area of Artibonite, which has seen some of the worst violence, the Centre department, and Nippes, on the southern peninsula, were among the departments that were eventually included when the state of emergency was frequently extended.
Conille said earlier in the day that he had assisted in supplying supplies and equipment to the Haitian army and national police so they could retake areas that gangs had taken over.
The announcement is made a day before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to visit the Caribbean nation.
Henry asked for a U.N.-backed security operation in 2022 to help combat gangs and regain territory, and the United States is the country that funds it the most.
A first wave of 400 Kenyan police officers came in June and July, with at least 2,500 additional troops offered by a few other nations. The mission’s mandate is scheduled to expire at the beginning of October, and these have not yet arrived.
The fighting has resulted in the internal displacement of almost 580,000 people, the deportation of hundreds of thousands of people back to Haiti, and the extreme starvation of nearly 5 million people.
