Six police officers were killed in an attack on a police station by gang members in northern Haiti on Wednesday, authorities said, a fresh act of violence at the origin of demonstrations in Port-au-Prince on Thursday.
Angered, civilians and police marched through the streets of the capital, erected barricades, tried to occupy the offices of controversial Prime Minister Ariel Henry and invaded the runway at Toussaint-Louverture International Airport, an AFP correspondent noted.
executions
However, the protesters did not reach the diplomatic lounge where the head of government was, returning from a summit meeting abroad. However, air traffic was disrupted while schools in Port-au-Prince closed their doors.
On Thursday, “bandits” three times attacked a police station in Liancourt, a town in the north of the Caribbean country, and “in the third attack,” gunmen attacking “on all fronts” “killed six of our officers,” the police chief said Jean Bruce Myrtil on Thursday morning to local radio.
Of the six police officers killed, four who had been injured earlier in the day were “pulled out” by gang members from the clinic where they were being treated “to execute them,” the police chief added.
14 police officers killed in January
The Director General of the National Police of Haiti, Frantz Elbé, has indicated that his armed forces “are in a state of high alert (…) as of this Thursday, January 26”. The police had announced the death of “six brave police officers” on their social networks. A senior US diplomat, Brian Nichols, responded on Twitter by saying “condemn gang violence” and called for “calm” in Haiti.
According to a count by the National Union of Haitian Police Officers, 14 police officers have been killed by armed gangs since the beginning of the year. Union leader Lionel Lazzare urged officers to take action to protect officers.
Gang violence and the humanitarian emergency in Haiti have reached proportions “unseen in decades”, the UN was alarmed on Tuesday and insisted on the need to send an international force, a request on the Security Council table for three months without a result .