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      ‘It’s mission impossible’: fear grows in Kenya over plan to deploy police to Haiti

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 09:30

    Deal to send hundreds of officers to Caribbean country amid spiraling gang violence is facing intense public and legal scrutiny

    Haiti’s raging gang insurrection has prompted growing concern in Kenya over plans to deploy hundreds of paramilitary police officers from the East African country on a UN-backed multinational mission to counter the violence.

    “If they come back in body bags, what will [Kenyan President William Ruto] tell the nation?” said Ekuru Aukot, leader of the opposition Thirdway Alliance, who last year filed a legal challenge against the deployment.

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      US starts to helicopter citizens out of Haiti as fighting erupts in wealthy areas

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 20 March - 20:30

    State department organizes evacuation after nearly 1,600 US citizens ask for help amid reports of continuing violence in capital

    The United States has said it was starting to evacuate its citizens out of Haiti by helicopter, amid reports of fresh fighting in the Caribbean country’s gang-dominated capital, with particularly fierce gunfire in some of the city’s wealthiest enclaves.

    A state department spokesperson, Vedant Patel, told reporters on Wednesday that government-chartered aircraft were in the process of beginning to ferry evacuees from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

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      At least a dozen dead as gang violence spills into wealthy areas of Haiti capital

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Monday, 18 March - 16:40

    Gunmen looted homes in Laboule and Thomassin, forcing residents to flee previously peaceful neighborhoods

    • Haiti: what caused the gang violence and will it end now the PM has quit?

    Gunmen have assaulted two upscale neighborhoods in Haiti ’s capital in an attack that left at least a dozen people dead in surrounding areas and suggested that a gang insurrection that prompted the prime minister to resign is far from over.

    Assailants looted homes in the communities of Laboule and Thomassin before sunrise on Monday, forcing residents to flee as some called radio stations pleading for police. Both neighborhoods had previously remained largely peaceful despite a surge in gang attacks across Port-au-Prince that began on 29 February.

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      US citizens flee Haiti on government-chartered flight

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Monday, 18 March - 12:07

    More than 30 Americans arrive in Miami from Cap-Haïten as US urges citizens to leave ‘as soon as possible’ amid gang violence

    A charter flight carrying dozens of US citizens fleeing spiraling gang violence in Haiti landed on Sunday in Miami, state department officials said.

    More than 30 US citizens were on the government-chartered flight, officials said in a statement. It arrived in Miami ’s international airport after the US embassy in Port-au-Prince earlier this month urged US citizens to leave “as soon as possible” as chaos grips Haiti .

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      Haiti healthcare system on verge of collapse as gang warfare rages on

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 17 March - 12:15

    Only a single hospital in Port-au-Prince remains open, with others devoid of staff as patients look for care and the dead pile up

    Haiti’s healthcare system has all but collapsed amid the ferocious gang insurrection which forced the resignation of the country’s prime minister, leaving victims of the violence with little hope of medical attention, according to aid workers in the stricken Caribbean country.

    In the past two weeks hospitals have been set ablaze, doctors murdered and the most basic medical supplies have now dried up. Only a single public hospital in Haiti’s capital now remains operational – and that too is expected to shut its doors soon.

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      Plundered and corrupted for 200 years, Haiti was doomed to end in anarchy | Kenan Malik

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Saturday, 16 March - 19:00

    Successive foreign governments plunged it into unpayable debt and left its citizens in penury

    In December 1914, the USS Machias dropped anchor in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Eight US marines disembarked, sauntered to the Banque National de la République d’Haïti (BNRH), removed $500,000 worth of gold belonging to the Haitian government – $15m in today’s money – packed it in wooden crates to carry back to the ship and thence to New York , where it was deposited in the vaults of the investment bank, Hallgarten & Co.

    The BNRH was Haiti’s central bank. It was also a foreign private corporation. Originally set up in 1880 through a concession granted to a French bank, pressure from America brought in US investors. By 1920, the BNRH was wholly owned by the American National City Bank. Haiti’s central bank it may have been but the Haitian government was charged for every transaction and the eye-popping profits spirited off to Paris or New York.

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      Scramble at the border as DR tightens security amid surging Haiti turmoil

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Saturday, 16 March - 12:00

    Haitians endure long queues for food in neighboring Dominican Republic but humanitarian crisis set to intensify

    Hundreds of Haitian women lined the road at the border with Dominican Republic, each one with a brightly coloured headscarf and a bulky package balanced on her head. Some seemed far to old to be carrying such loads, others were raw-boned girls barely into their teens, all waiting in a long queue to cross back into their country.

    Wiry porters pushed red-rusted wheelbarrows with loads of soft drinks or yams so high they could barely peer over them. Younger men on motorized rickshaws revved impatiently, eager to deliver their loads and rush back for more before the border closed.

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      Guns and weapons trafficked from US fueling Haiti gang violence

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 14 March - 10:30


    Experts say most guns smuggled from states with lax firearms laws such as Florida, Arizona and Georgia

    As Haiti has again plunged into violent chaos, images of gang members bearing high-powered rifles, pump action shotguns or automatic weapons in the streets of Port-au-Prince have become ubiquitous.

    But this weaponry is not made in Haiti, a country with no firearms or ammunition manufacturing capabilities.

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      Threat of violence in Haiti will remain without rethinking of political accountability

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 13 March - 18:00

    Plan for transitional council to rule after prime minister’s resignation brings strong sense of deja vu

    The announcement of a new transitional council to rule Haiti, as prime minister Ariel Henry announced his resignation amid a violent gang uprising, has brought a strong sense of deja vu.

    Those tipped for seats on the council are familiar figures associated with political parties and coalitions which have been key players in the country’s long-running crisis of political legitimacy. Even the decision to include representatives of Haiti’s tiny, oligarchic business elite is a reminder that though things change, they remain the same.

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