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Haitian Slums Descend into Anarchy as Crisis Sparks Worst Violence in Years

Reuters

   PORT-AU-PRINCE - Venite Bernard's feet are bloodied and torn because,
   she said, she had no time to grab her sandals when she fled her shack
   with her youngest children as gangsters roamed the Haitian capital's
   most notorious slum, shooting people in their homes.

   Now the 47-year-old Bernard and her family are camped in the courtyard
   of the town hall of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, along with more than
   200 others, fleeing an outbreak of violence that is part of what civic
   leaders say is the country's worst lawlessness in more than a decade.

   "Bandits entered the homes of some people and beat them, and they were
   shooting," Bernard said through her tears, lying on a rug in the shade
   of a tree. "Everyone was running so I left as quickly as I could with
   the children."

   United Nations peacekeeping troops withdrew from Haiti in 2017 after 15
   years, saying they had helped to re-establish law and order in the
   poorest country in the Americas, where nearly 60 percent of the
   population survives on less than $2.40 a day.

   But that left a security vacuum that has been exacerbated over the past
   year by police forces being diverted to deal with protests against
   President Jovenel Moise.

   "With limited resources, they have been unable to contain the activity
   of gangs as they might have wished," said Serge Therriault, U.N. police
   commissioner in Haiti in an interview.

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