‘We are all by ourselves’: Haitians warn that fall of Port-au-Prince is imminent

For weeks now, Haiti’s volatile capital has been caught between cries and gunfire, armed gangs and mass exodus, and anxiety and silence.

Neighborhood after neighborhood is being emptied out as criminal gangs, brandishing high-powered automatic weapons, march on Port-au-Prince, crawling through ravines and filing through concrete corridors to seize new territory while young arsonists set fires to homes and businesses.

No one has been spared in the frantic chaos that has left a trail of broken furniture, burned out buildings and a stream of misery. Not government ministries, not the pillaged enterprises or the charred homes. On Friday, the French Embassy, close to the fighting on Rue Capois and Avenue Christophe, temporarily shuttered its doors.

The intense violence by the powerful Viv Ansanm gang coalition has forced nearly 60,000 people to flee their homes in just one month, the United Nations International Organization for Migration said Tuesday. The relentless attacks, the U.N. said, have affected neighborhoods in Delmas, Carrefour-Feuilles, Martissant, Fort National, Pétion-Ville and Tabarre and eroded the last few gang-free areas.

“We have never observed a such large number of people moving in this short time” said Grégoire Goodstein, the group’s chief in Haiti.

Austin Holmes, who has directed high-stakes humanitarian efforts and extractions for nonprofits in Haiti and lived there until the violence forced him to return to Florida, says gangs’ recent movements and assaults all point to their trying to seize control of the presidential palace or the prime minister’s office, both symbols of power.