Haiti extends state of emergency and shuts main port after 'sabotage'

Haiti has extended a state of emergency and shut main port due to "sabotage" after days of worsening gang violence that have plunged the Caribbean country into chaos and left the prime minister unable to return from abroad.

Caribbean Port Services, the sole operator of the port in Haiti's capital city Port-au-Prince, cited "malicious acts of sabotage and vandalism" on Thursday as it announced the decision to suspend all services.

The government also extended a state of emergency by one month, covering the west of the country, which includes the capital city — but gangs control large swathes of residential areas.

The UN's humanitarian office, meanwhile, warned that the health system was "nearing collapse," with many facilities closing or reducing services and a shortage of medicine and staff.

It called for an end to violence to allow aid to enter the country and reported a lack of "blood, beds and staff to treat patients with gunshot wounds."

Gang boss warns of genocide

Gangs again targeted police late on Wednesday by setting fire to a headquarters in Bas-Peu-de-Chose, a neighbourhood in the capital. Officers escaped before the attack, which also destroyed several police vehicles, according to Haiti's police union Synapoha.

Synapoha said that ten police stations have been destroyed, and at least 15,000 people are estimated to have fled the worst-hit parts of Port-au-Prince.

The criminal groups went on the offensive last week while Prime Minister Ariel Henry travelled abroad, beginning with an assault on two prisons that allowed the majority of inmates to escape.

Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier, an influential gang leader in Haiti, has warned of civil war and mass bloodshed unless Henry resigns.

In power since the 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moise, Henry was due to leave office in February but instead agreed to a power-sharing deal with the opposition until new elections are held.

When the latest unrest broke out, Henry was in Kenya to negotiate a UN-backed multinational police mission to stabilise his country. He has not commented on the surge in unrest and was last confirmed to be in the US territory of Puerto Rico.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone on Thursday to Henry and told him there was an urgent need to accelerate the transition to a more inclusive government, a senior State Department official said.

Brian Nichols, US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, told a think-tank conference in Washington the conversation with Henry was intensive, as Haiti faced a continuing wave of gang violence that has threatened to bringdown the government.