The United Nations has ordered the evacuation of its staff from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, as clashes between armed gangs, the police, and civilians armed with machetes intensified in recent days.
A UN helicopter on Monday ferried evacuees—14 at a time—from the capital to the northern city of Cap-Haitien, with some scheduled to take flights out of the country. This comes after the main international airport in Port-au-Prince was closed due to commercial flights being hit by gunfire while landing and taking off earlier this month.
The airlift also includes foreign embassies and other relief agencies.
A United States Air Force C-130 aircraft landed in the capital Port-au-Prince’s airport on Sunday to transport American diplomats who were ordered to leave the US embassy, the US Southern Command said.
Most foreign embassies are now effectively closed, with staffing limited to a handful of senior officials and security details.
In a statement, the UN said it was “adapting its operations,” with some staff moving to safer parts of the country and others leaving Haiti but continuing to work remotely.
Food for the Poor (FFTP), which runs feeding programs in Haiti, said it was no longer able to make regular food deliveries because of gang disruptions, noting the closure of the airport and gang roadblocks that make access to the main seaports “extremely hazardous.”.
A 430-strong UN-backed security mission comprised mostly of Kenyan police, which was sent in June to support Haiti’s understaffed police department, defended its role in the face of public criticism of its “handling of the current security situation amid an apparent surge in gang activities.”.
The UN estimates that at least 220 people, including 115 gang members, were killed in more than a dozen coordinated attacks between November 11 and 19 that were aimed at forcing the government to resign, according to a confidential UN situation report.
More than 4,500 people were reported killed in Haiti so far this year, the UN says. An estimated 41,000 people were forced to flee their homes in the last two weeks alone, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). There are overall more than 700,000 people displaced in Haiti due to the conflict, the IOM says.