PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
Intruders broke into a major port terminal in Haiti Thursday as violence in the country escalated after the government extended its state of emergency.
The Haitian government decreed
the state of emergency would be extended to April 3 in the country’s West
Region and the capital Port-au-Prince. A curfew has
been extended to March 10.
It comes as Port-au-Prince’s
Caribbean Port Services (CPS) terminal, a major player in Haiti’s food import
supply chain, was broken into around 8 a.m., two security sources told CNN. The
intruders headed to the terminal’s gated warehouse area that houses many
containers, the sources said.
Video of the port on Thursday
showed hundreds of people on the streets around the facility and what appeared
to be dozens of people breaking into the gated warehouse. CPS did not respond
to CNN’s requests for comment.
The source said the unrest at
the port continues.
Port-au-Prince has been
gripped by a wave of highly coordinated gang attacks on law enforcement and
state institutions in what one gang leader, Jimmy Cherizier, has described as
an attempt to overthrow Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s government.A law enforcement officer at a police station set on fire by armed gangs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 5, 2024.
Armed groups have burned down
police stations and released thousands of inmates from two prisons, and
Cherizier has warned of “a civil war that will end in genocide” if the prime
minister does not step down, Reuters reported Tuesday.
The chaos has forced tens of
thousands to flee their homes in the past few days, adding to the more than
300,000 already displaced by gang violence.
It is also affecting the
distribution of essential supplies by aid organizations. The World Food
Programme suspended its maritime transport services in Port-au-Prince from
distributing aid across Haiti due to the instability.
Two dozen trucks of aid,
filled with food, medical supplies, and equipment, are stuck at the
port in Port-au-Prince, the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a Thursday statement.
Maritime routes are the only
way to transport aid, especially food and medical supplies for humanitarian and
development organizations, from Port-au-Prince to the rest of the country, said
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General and OCHA.
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