Haiti’s international airport temporarily closed on Monday after gangs opened fire on a Spirit Airlines flight landing in Port-au-Prince, the US State Department and the airline said. The violence occurred as a new prime minister took office.
Gunfights between gangs and police broke out in parts of the capital Port-au-Prince, with heavily armed officers ducking behind walls as civilians ran in terror. In other upper class neighborhoods, the gangs They burned homes.
The US embassy in Haiti issued a travel warning stating that the city’s airport was closed due to “gang-led efforts to block travel to and from Port-au-Prince that may include armed violence, and disruptions to roads, ports and airports.”
This follows reports that gangs shot at a Spirit airline flight, which had to be diverted to the Donican Republic. Photos on social media, which could not immediately be verified, showed bullet holes in the plane.
Spirit said in a statement that the ship had been damaged and taken out of service upon landing in the Dominican city of Santiago.
A flight attendant was injured in the incident, the airline said. He Miami Herald reported that she had been grazed by a bullet. No passengers were injured, Spirit added.
All flights entering and leaving Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport have been interrupted, the newspaper said.
The unrest occurred a day after the council charged with restoring democratic order in the Caribbean country dismissed the Acting Prime Minister Garry Conilleand replaced him with businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who was sworn into office this Monday. The Council has been marked by infighting and three of its members have recently been accused of corruption.
Suited diplomats and security officials flocked to the inauguration ceremony on Monday, scheduled for the afternoon.
The country has seen weeks of political chaos, which observers warned could lead to even more violence in a place where bloodshed has become the new normal. The country’s gangs have long taken advantage of political turmoil to seize power, closing airports and ports and wreaking havoc.
The Transitional Council was created in April, tasked with electing Haiti’s next prime minister and Cabinet, in the hope that it would help quell violence, which erupted following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021.
The council was to pave the way for democratic elections, which have not been held in Haiti for years. The gangs have taken advantage of this power vacuum to take over.
But the council has been plagued by politicking and infighting, and has long been at odds with Garry Conille, the interim prime minister they elected six months ago and fired yesterday.
Organizations such as the Organization of American States have tried, without success, to mediate the disagreements last week, in an attempt to save the fragile transition.
[Con información de Reuters y AP]
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