PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — As the sun sets, a burly man bellows into a megaphone as a curious crowd gathers around him. Next to it is a small cardboard box with several bills worth 10 Haitian gourdes (about 7 cents).
“Everyone gives what they have!” the man shouts as he grabs the arms and hands of people entering a neighborhood in the capital of Port-au-Prince that has been the target of violent gangs.
The community recently voted to purchase a metal barricade and install it themselves to try to protect residents from the relentless violence that killed or injured more than 2,500 people in Haiti from January to March.
“Every day I wake up and find a dead body,” said Noune-Carme Manoune, an immigration officer.
Life in Port-au-Prince has become a game of survival, pushing Haitians to new limits as they fight to stay safe and alive while gangs overwhelm the police and the government remains largely absent. Some are installing metal barricades. Others press the accelerator hard while driving near gang-controlled areas. The few who can afford it are stockpiling water, food, money and medicine, supplies of which have dwindled since the main international airport closed in early March. The country’s largest seaport is largely paralyzed by gangs of marauders.
“People living in the capital are locked up, they have nowhere to go,” Philippe Branchat, head of the International Organization for Migration in Haiti, said in a recent statement. “The capital is surrounded by armed groups and danger. “It’s a city under siege.”
Telephones often flash alerts about gunshots, kidnappings and fatal shootings, and some supermarkets have so many armed guards that they resemble small police stations.
Gang attacks used to occur only in certain areas, but now they can occur anywhere and at any time. Staying home does not guarantee safety: a man playing with his daughter at home was shot in the back by a stray bullet. Others have been murdered.
Schools and gas stations are closed and black market fuel sells for $9 a gallon, roughly three times the official price. Banks have banned customers from withdrawing more than $100 a day, and checks that once took three days to clear now take a month or more. Police officers have to wait weeks to receive their pay.
“Everyone is under stress,” said Isidore Gédéon, a 38-year-old musician. “After the prison break, people don’t trust anyone. “The State is not in control.”
Gangs that control approximately 80% of Port-au-Prince launched coordinated attacks on February 29 against critical state infrastructure. They burned police stations, shot at the airport and stormed Haiti’s two largest prisons, freeing more than 4,000 inmates.
At the time, Prime Minister Ariel Henry was visiting Kenya to push for the deployment of a UN-backed police force. Henry remains banned from Haiti, and a transitional presidential council tasked with selecting the country’s next prime minister and cabinet could be sworn in as early as this week. Henry has pledged to step down once a new leader is installed.
Few believe this will end the crisis. It is not just the gangs that unleash violence; Haitians have embraced a vigilante movement known as “bwa kale,” which has killed several hundred suspected gang members or their associates.
“There are certain communities I can’t go to because everyone is afraid of everyone,” Gédéon said. “You could be innocent and end up dead.”
More than 95,000 people have fled Port-au-Prince in a month alone as gangs attack communities, burn homes and kill people in territories controlled by their rivals.
Those fleeing by bus to Haiti’s southern and northern regions risk being gang-raped or killed as they pass through gang-controlled areas where gunmen have opened fire.
Violence in the capital has left some 160,000 people homeless, according to the IOM.
“This is hell,” said producer and cameraman Nelson Langlois.
Langlois, his wife and three children spent two nights lying on the roof of their home while gangs raided the neighborhood.
“Over and over, we looked to see when we could flee,” he recalled.
Forced to separate due to lack of accommodation, Langlois lives in a voodoo temple and his wife and children are elsewhere in Port-au-Prince.
Like most people in the city, Langlois usually stays at home. The days of casual football matches on dusty roads and nights of drinking Prestige beer in bars playing hip-hop, reggae or African music are long gone.
“It’s an open-air prison,” Langlois said.
The violence has also forced businesses, government agencies and schools to close, leaving dozens of Haitians unemployed.
Manoune, the government immigration official, said she has been making money selling treated water because she doesn’t have a job because deportations are stalled.
Meanwhile, Gédéon said he no longer makes a living playing drums, noting that bars and other venues are closed. He sells small plastic bags of water on the street and has become a handyman, installing fans and fixing appliances.
Even students are entering the workforce as the crisis deepens poverty across Haiti.
Sully, a 10th grade student whose school closed almost two months ago, stood on a street corner in the Pétion-Ville community selling gasoline he buys on the black market.
“You have to be careful,” said Sully, who asked that his last name not be revealed for safety. “During the morning he is safer.”
He sells about five gallons a week, generating about $40 for his family, but he can’t afford to join his classmates who are learning remotely.
“Online classes are for people luckier than me, who have more money,” Sully said.
The European Union announced last week the launch of a humanitarian airlift from the Central American country of Panama to Haiti. Five flights landed in the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, home to Haiti’s only functioning airport, with 62 tons of medicine, water, emergency shelter equipment and other essential supplies.
But there is no guarantee that critical items will reach those who need them most. Many Haitians remain trapped in their homes, unable to shop or search for food amid the whistling of bullets.
Aid groups say nearly 2 million Haitians are on the brink of famine, more than 600,000 of them children.
However, people are finding ways to survive.
Back in the neighborhood where residents are installing a metal barricade, sparks fly as one man cuts metal while others shovel and mix cement. They are underway and hope to finish the project soon.
Others are skeptical, citing reports of gangs climbing onto loaders and other heavy equipment to take down police stations and, more recently, metal barricades.