The country of Haiti has descended into chaos as criminal gangs have taken over the country, shutting down the main international airport and forcing business and schools to shut down. According to CBS News, 15,000 have now fled the capitol of Port-au-Prince.
The US military sent troops to bolster security at the US embassy and to evacuate nonessential American personnel:
The U.S. military said Sunday that it had flown in forces to beef up security at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and allow nonessential personnel to leave.
The aircraft flew to the embassy compound, the U.S. Southern Command said, meaning that the effort involved helicopters. It was careful to point out that “no Haitians were on board the military aircraft.” That seemed aimed at quashing any speculation that senior government officials might be leaving as the gang attacks in Haiti worsen.
The neighborhood around the embassy in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is largely controlled by gangs.
According to Cory Mills yesterday, his team rescued Americans in Haiti who were running an orphanage there and were trapped:
I am proud to report that my team and I were successful in evacuating and rescuing a trapped, and at risk group of Americans from ‘Have Faith Orphanage’ in Haiti last night. This recent mission reiterates a disturbing reality that under President Biden’s leadership American lives are continually jeopardized. I have conducted rescue/ evacs of Americans multiple times when Joe Biden has deserted them. There’s a clear pattern of abandonment!
Afghanistan 2021 ✅
Israel 2023 ✅
Haiti 2024 ✅
Americans at home and abroad are more unsafe under Biden than ever before. We need President Trump back in the White House as the world can’t afford 4 more years of Biden’s failed administration.
So what is going on in Haiti to cause all of this gang-controlled chaos? Here’s a pretty good article from CBS News that explains what’s currently happening and the reasons behind the current unrest:
Criminal gangs more powerful that Haiti’s state security forces have attacked prisons and the airport serving the country’s capital, forcing businesses and schools to close and driving an estimated 15,000 people from their homes in Port-au-Prince. On March 12, Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced that he would resign once a transitional presidential council was created, capitulating to international pressure as his country faced what some experts had already labelled a low-scale civil war.
Henry announced his decision hours after officials, including Caribbean leaders and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, met in Jamaica to discuss a solution to Haiti’s spiraling crisis.
The U.N.’s top human rights official had warned days earlier that the situation in Haiti was “beyond untenable,” noting that more than 1,190 people had been killed since the start of 2024 alone. But the chaos and bloodshed started long before that in the small, deeply impoverished Caribbean nation, and international efforts to send help have thus far gone nowhere.
The latest episode of major violence flared up on Feb. 29 as Prime Minister Henry flew to Kenya to push for the U.N.-backed deployment of a police force to help fight the gangs.
Heavy gunfire echoed across the capital as prominent gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier announced that his group, G9, was joining forces with other gangs to force Henry to step down.
Finance Minister Patrick Boivert, serving as Haiti’s acting prime minister in Henry’s absence, declared a state of emergency on March 3 and said officials were imposing an evening curfew to “take appropriate measures in order to regain control of the situation.”
On March 5, with Henry still in his role though not in the country, Cherizier warned that if the premier didn’t resign and “if the international community continues to support him, we’ll be heading straight for a civil war that will lead to genocide.”
Government corruption is at the root of Haiti’s long-standing instability. The small nation has grappled with violent political unrest for 20 years, but powerful earthquakes in both 2010 and 2021 did nothing to help ease the difficult lives of residents. The 2010 disaster was one of the deadliest earthquakes ever, killing roughly a quarter of a million people and devastating the island’s already weak infrastructure.
The latest round of attacks began in late February after Henry pledged to hold long-awaited general elections, but not until mid-2025. He’d been due to step down voluntarily by February but declined to do so, infuriating many Haitians and sparking the gangs’ uprising.
The current crisis can be traced directly back to 2021, however, when then-Prime Minister Jovenel Moïse, who was facing a mounting economic and political crisis as he led the country by decree and without a democratic mandate was assassinated.
Henry was sworn in as prime minister soon after with the backing of the international community, but his authority was never cemented as Haitians continued to grapple with soaring prices and crumbling infrastructure.
After Henry left the country, he hasn’t been able to return due to the airports being closed. He is currently in Puerto Rico and they’ve invited hi to stay as long as he needs.