Haiti declares state of emergency after mass jailbreak

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Haiti’s government has imposed a 72-hour state of emergency and night curfew after gangs that control swaths of the capital Port-au-Prince over-ran two prisons and freed thousands of inmates.

Most of the estimated 3,800 prisoners in the capital’s National Penitentiary escaped on Saturday, leaving the normally overcrowded jail mostly empty with no guards in sight. Photographs taken outside the entrance showed clothes and furniture strewn in the street.

Authorities reported a second mass jailbreak from the Croix des Bouquets prison, which holds 1,450 people, on the capital’s outskirts.

The government said it had taken the emergency measures, which came into effect on Sunday night, because of a deteriorating security situation “characterised by more and more violent criminal acts committed by armed gangs, triggering big displacements of the population”.

Security forces would use “all legal means” to enforce the curfew, it said on Sunday.

As the impoverished Caribbean nation slid further into lawlessness, Prime Minister Ariel Henry headed home from Kenya with an agreement, signed on Friday, for Nairobi to contribute 1,000 police to lead a new UN-authorised multinational force in Haiti to try to shore up authority and combat the gangs.

Benin last week offered 2,000 troops for the mission, while Washington has promised to back it with $200mn. Canada has pledged $60mn.

Haiti’s 9,000 police are often outgunned by the gangs, which control or influence more than 80 per cent of the capital, according to the UN. Over 200 gangs have thrived in the power vacuum left after President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021 in circumstances that remain mysterious.

Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer nicknamed “Barbecue” who controls a gang federation, has led the recent upsurge in violence with the declared aim of stopping Henry returning to the country and ultimately ousting him.

On Sunday evening the US embassy in Port-au-Prince told Americans to leave the country as soon as possible because of the deteriorating security situation.

The move follows a weekend in which the violence exploded, with gangs attacking the national soccer stadium, the international airport, police stations and the two jails.

In January, the UN said more than 8,400 people in Haiti fell victim to gang violence last year, including killings, injuries and kidnappings. It described the situation as having reached a “critical point”.

International efforts to bring calm have been complicated by the reluctance of some nations to commit peacekeeping forces to Haiti after the failure of previous missions. The US and Brazil are among those unwilling to send troops or police.

Henry took over as caretaker leader after Moïse was murdered, but the country has not held elections since 2016 and many Haitians question his legitimacy. The prime minister was scheduled to step down by February 7 and hold elections, but at a summit of Caribbean leaders in Guyana last week he said elections would be held by September 2025.

Claude Joseph, who was acting prime minister when Moïse was assassinated and now heads an opposition party, told the BBC that Haiti was living through a “nightmare”. He accused Henry of wanting “to stay as long as possible” and said Haitians were demanding he step aside.

Luis Moreno, a retired US diplomat who served as deputy chief of mission in Port-au-Prince from 2001 to 2004, said that there was little hope of a swift end to the unrest.

“The police are overwhelmed and have broken up into factions themselves,” he said, adding that private security services were trying to protect “elite families and those businesses that are hanging on by their fingernails”.

The situation was no longer “like it was 20 years ago, where 5,000 troops could go in there and squash everything and be in total control in 72 hours”, he said.