PORT PRINCE: With Haiti’s capital spiralling deeper into violence, the United States said on Sunday it has airlifted American staff from its embassy in Port-au-Prince and brought in additional personnel to boost security at the compound.

Residents of beleaguered neighbourhoods were scrambling for safety on Saturday, following the latest spasm of unrest, with a UN group warning of a “city under siege” after armed attackers targeted the presidential palace and police headquarters.

The groups which already control much of Port-au-Prince as well as roads leading to the rest of the country have unleashed havoc in recent days as they try to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry. PM Henry was due to leave office in February but instead agreed to a power-sharing deal with the opposition until new elections are held.

Washington has asked Henry to enact urgent political reform. He was in Kenya when the violence erupted and is now reportedly stranded in the US territory of Puerto Rico.

The unrest has seen 362,000 Haitians internally displaced — more than half of them children, the International Organisation for Migration said.

Pre-dawn operation

The US military said early Sunday it had “conducted an operation to augment the security of the US embassy at Port-au-Prince, allow our embassy mission operations to continue, and enable non-essential personnel to depart.” The military’s southern command said, “This airlift of personnel into and out of the embassy is consistent with our standard practice for embassy security augmentation.”

The embassy said on X it “remains open”. “Heightened gang violence in the neighborhood near US embassy compounds and near the airport led to the State Department’s decision to arrange for the departure of additional embassy personnel,” it added.

Meanwhile, the Ger­man foreign ministry said its ambassador joined other European Union representatives in leaving for the Dominican Republic on Sunday due to the very tense security situation in Haiti.

CARICOM, an alliance of Caribbean nations, has summoned envoys from the US, France, Canada and the UN to a meeting on Monday in Jamaica to discuss the violence and ways to provide assistance to Haiti.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2024