{"id":190721,"date":"2026-05-13T01:35:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/190721\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T01:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:35:17","slug":"new-gang-violence-in-haiti-displaces-hundreds-of-people-ap-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/190721\/","title":{"rendered":"New gang violence in Haiti displaces hundreds of people | Ap-world"},"content":{"rendered":"

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) \u2014 A new wave of gang violence<\/a> in Haiti\u2019s capital forced hundreds to flee their homes over the weekend, leaving families scattered along the road to the country\u2019s main airport on Monday.<\/p>\n

Monique Verdieux, 56, fled to the highway after watching armed men burning houses in her neighborhood. Her family scattered in different directions and she said she’s not sure where they are.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am now sleeping in the street,\u201d Verdieux said, noting it was unsafe to return.<\/p>\n

Gangs have overtaken more than 70% of Port-au-Prince since the assassination of President Jovenal Mo\u00efse<\/a> in July 2021 at his home. That number was as high as 90% but has dropped. Police say they have expanded their activities \u2014 including looting, kidnapping, sexual assaults and rape \u2014 into the countryside. Haiti has not had a president since the assassination.<\/p>\n

In a statement released Monday, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders announced the evacuation of its hospital in Cit\u00e9 Soleil following intense clashes in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood on Sunday. The organization, known by its French acronym MSF, reported treating over 40 gunshot victims within 12 hours while providing temporary shelter to 800 people fleeing the violence. One of those injured was a security guard who was hit by a stray bullet in the hospital’s grounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe managed to evacuate him and his condition is now stable,\u201d said Davina Hayles, MSF\u2019s head of mission in Haiti. \u201cBut it is unthinkable that our teams and civilians should become victims of these clashes.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the past two weeks, Haitian rum maker Barbancourt and two of the nation’s largest bottlers have also warned about deteriorating security conditions near Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport<\/a>, where operations are now severely restricted.<\/p>\n

In a statement released on Sunday, the companies said that the government’s response to the crisis has been \u201clargely insufficient,\u201d and noted that the poor state of the roads leading to the airport makes it difficult for Haitian security forces to patrol the area. The companies are among Haiti\u2019s main fiscal contributors.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot secure an airport if you allow the roads around it to degrade,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n

In April, the first foreign troops linked to a U.N. force arrived in Haiti to help quell ongoing violence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.N. Security Council in late September approved a plan<\/a> to authorize a 5,550-member force, which has not fully arrived in the island nation. An unknown number of troops from Chad<\/a> have so far been deployed.<\/p>\n

A report published earlier this year by the International Organization for Migration found that gang violence has displaced more than 1.4 million people in Haiti, with approximately 200,000 of them now living in crowded and underfunded sites in the nation’s capital.<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/latin-america<\/a><\/p>\n

This story clarifies that gangs control 70% of Port-au-Prince, down from 90% previously.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) \u2014 A new wave of gang violence in Haiti\u2019s capital forced hundreds to flee their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,3651,31,38,84957,11250,41,109,301],"class_list":["post-190721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-assassinations","tag-crime","tag-general-news","tag-haiti-violence-gangs-port-au-prince","tag-organized-crime","tag-political-violence","tag-violence","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}