Almost as frightening as the threats from a Haitian crime lord of “a civil war that will lead to genocide” on Wednesday was the silence from the country’s leaders. Jimmy Chérizier, widely known as Barbecue, is behind the week-long uprising by gangs that has freed 4,000 prisoners and besieged airports and police stations. The gangs are demanding the resignation of the unelected and unpopular prime minister, Ariel Henry, who arrived in Puerto Rico on Tuesday having been unable to return home from a foreign trip. But while ordinary citizens reel from the violence, he has yet to comment. The finance minister declared a state of emergency via a press release.
Even before the gangs banded together last week, a country used to suffering and turmoil was struggling with an unprecedented crisis that began with the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. More than 4,780 people were murdered in 2023 – double the homicide rate in 2022 – while 2,490 were kidnapped. This year, 1,193 have already been killed. Vigilantism emerged last year, with angry civilians lynching suspected gang members. Tens of thousands of residents have been displaced, and the UN has called the effect on food supplies “cataclysmic”.
