PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 12, (AP): A growing number of civilians and police officers are demanding the dismissal and arrest of Haiti’s police chief as heavily armed gangs launched a new attack in the capital of Port-au-Prince, seizing control of yet another police station early Saturday.
Armed men raided the coastal community of Gressier in the western tip of Port-au-Prince late Friday, injuring people, burning cars and attacking homes and other infrastructure as scores of people fled into the nearby mountains following a barrage of gunfire overnight.
It was not immediately known if anyone died.
Videos posted on social media showed people fleeing into the early dawn balancing bags and suitcases on their heads as men clad in sandals and carrying heavy weapons celebrated with gunfire.
"The town is ours,” said one man who filmed himself with others who were armed, noting they were in Gressier. "We have no limits.”
The attack comes roughly a week after gang attacks in central Port-au-Prince forced more than 3,700 people to flee their homes.
"The situation is critical and catastrophic,” Garry Jean-Baptiste, a spokesman for the SPNH-17 police union, told The Associated Press.
He called Frantz Elbé, director of Haiti’s National Police, incapable and incompetent: "Monsieur Elbé has failed.”
Jean-Baptiste said the union wants a newly installed transitional presidential council to demand Elbé’s resignation and order justice officials to launch an investigation into the crisis.