After bandits freed thousands of prisoners from prisons, pressure on the government in Haiti is increasing: The US government called on the Haitian interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry to accelerate the process towards free and fair elections, according to Matthew Miller, spokesman for the Haitian Interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry US State Department said in Washington on Wednesday. Henry took over the reins of government shortly after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Since then there have been no elections in the Caribbean country.
After a trip last week to Guyana and Kenya, Henry has not yet returned to Haiti; on Tuesday he traveled to Puerto Rico. Henry actually wanted to make a stopover in Haiti’s neighboring country, the Dominican Republic, as Dominican government spokesman Humberto Figueroa announced on Wednesday. The Dominican Republic rejected this because of a lack of a flight plan. All flights to and from Haiti were canceled due to gang violence.
On Saturday, bandits freed prisoners from two prisons. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, more than 4,500 prisoners escaped, including known gang members and suspects in connection with the Moïse murder. The leader of the gang coalition, ex-policeman Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, warned according to a newspaper report Le Nouvelliste facing civil war if Henry did not resign and the international community continued to support him.
According to UN estimates, brutal gangs control around 80 percent of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince. According to the Haitian human rights organization RNDDH, the two main armed groups united on February 29th. According to his spokesman, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for the deployment of a multinational force to support the Haitian police to be financed. The UN Security Council approved this in October, and Kenya wanted to take the lead.