Powerful gang leader behind the violence blighting Haiti’s capital Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier (in jungle green shirt) warns of a ‘civil war’ should country’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry fail to resign.
‘Barbecue’ maintains the threat as members of his gang seize section of an international airport Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, in a bid to stop PM Henry from returning from abroad.
The Prime Minister who was in Kenya a week ago to sign a deployment pact to send at least 1,000 Kenyan police to Haiti, is yet to fly back to his country, international media reporting ‘him being stranded abroad’ after suddenly landing in Puerto Rico on Tuesday following days of his whereabouts remaining unknown.
Aid groups in the Caribbean country say about 15,000 people have been displaced from their homes in recent weeks, the UN estimating that since the beginning of the year, at least 1,193 people have been killed, and 692 others injured by gang violence. in Haiti.
Over last weekend, the gangs invaded a prison and set free over 4,000 locked prisoners, before taking over a police station in the capital and killing a police boss.
The weekend’s wave of violence comes amid growing chaos and lawlessness in Haiti, sparked by the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021.
