Haiti experienced a day this Friday with all activities paralyzed, one day after the great tension registered in Port-au-Prince during the police protest against the lack of action by the authorities in the face of the continuous murders of agents.
Today schools, banks and companies, both public and private, remained closed, and embassies and consulates They did not open their doors to the public.
In the capital, public transport was practically paralyzed and people were barely visible on the streets.
It was the panorama that the city presented after the protests on Thursday with shots, barricades and burning tires, when the agents denounced the passivity of the Government in the face of the murders of police officers, at least fourteen in less than a month, the last ones this Wednesday .
Faced with this situation, the National Police announced today the launch of a new operationbaptized as "twister 1" and that it seeks to give a proportional response to the armed gangs that have become strong in the country and control a large part of Port-au-Prince and its surroundings.
These groups have been terrorizing the population for months, including the Police, which has led many people to leave their homes and flee.
MSF SUSPENDS ITS ACTIVITIES IN HOSPITAL
Haiti lives immersed in a socioeconomic and political crisis and in a spiral of violence that affects everyone, including health centers.
Today the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced the suspension of its activities at the Dr. Raoul Pierre Louis public hospital, located in Carrefour, at the southern entrance to the capital, following the murder of a patient.
Yesterday some armed men entered that health center, took a patient with injuries from the emergency area and shot him in the head. It was the second such incident in six months.
"Faced with this unacceptable act of violence, we have no choice but to temporarily suspend our activities at the Raoul Pierre Louis hospital, as long as we cannot guarantee the safety of our teams and patients."said Benoit Vasseur, coordinator of MSF in Haiti, in a statement.
According to this person in charge of the NGO, "once again we are dismayed by this type of punitive expeditions that disregard humanitarian principles, as well as the protection that every patient should enjoy within any health structure".
Neither are diplomatic personnel immune to violence and yesterday, in the midst of the maximum tension that existed in Port-au-Prince, the head of the Bahamas diplomatic mission reported that they had been detained by the Haitian Police and stripped of their vehicle and weapons. .
SENTENCES TO THE MURDERS OF POLICE
In the violent day of Thursday there were shots, barricades and the burning of vehicles and even the personal residence of the Haitian Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, She was attacked.
The head of the Government was not there, but was traveling back from Argentina after participating in the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).
Given the violence unleashed in the surroundings of the Toussaint Louverture airport in Port-au-Prince, the landing of the plane carrying Henry had to be delayed, whom the agents accuse of inaction in the face of the murders of police officers.
Today the sentences for these crimes followed one another and the UN urged the authorities to prosecute those responsible.
Although Haiti has been immersed in crisis and violence for years, the situation worsened after the assassination in July 2021 of the then President Jovenel Moïse.
Last October, the government officially requested the dispatch of a foreign force, after which the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, proposed establishing a "snap action force" made up of soldiers from one or several countries and not under the United Nations flag, an initiative that has not yet materialized.