The U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) said on Sunday it was obliged to airlift non-essential personnel from the United States Embassy in Haiti, as well as send more troops to the embassy to provide security.
The European Union and Germany also withdrew embassy personnel as bloody gang violence in Haiti intensified.
“The upsurge in gang violence in neighborhoods near the U.S. embassy and airport has led the State Department to decide to proceed with the departure of additional agents,” a U.S. diplomatic spokesman told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Sunday.
“This airlift of personnel into and out of the embassy is consistent with our standard practice for embassy security augmentation worldwide, and no Haitians were on board the military aircraft,” USSOUTHCOM said, addressing fears that the Haitian crisis will provoke another wave of refugees flowing into the United States.
“Our embassy remains focused on advancing U.S. government efforts to support the Haitian people, including mobilizing support for the Haitian National Police, expediting the deployment of the United Nations-authorized Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission and accelerating a peaceful transition of power via free and fair elections,” the U.S. military statement said.
The statement added that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) remains “postured” to provide “robust enabling support for the MSS, including planning assistance, information sharing, airlift, communications, and medical support.”
The MSS remains largely theoretical in nature. The State Department said on Saturday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the Haiti crisis with President William Ruto of Kenya, who has promised to spearhead a multinational peacekeeping force with a thousand Kenyan police officers. Ruto’s intervention plan has been stalled by Kenyan court rulings that said he lacks the constitutional authority to deploy Kenyan police on foreign soil.
The European Union (EU) announced on Monday it has evacuated all personnel from Haiti due to “the dramatic deterioration of the security situation.”
European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said EU staffers were relocated from Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince to “a safer location outside of the country,” where they will continue their work.
“We are, of course, assessing the situation and will be adjusting the ways how we operate as the security situation develops,” Stano said.
Germany also withdrew diplomatic personnel from Haiti over the weekend. CNN reported that an evacuation operation carrying German and EU staff was “forced to turn down requests to help evacuate others on Sunday.”
Sunday’s evacuation flight included both the German and EU ambassadors to Haiti. The situation is so dangerous that it took “several days of intensive planning and coordination on both sides of the Dominican-Haitian border” to pull it off.
The mission apparently took the form of a “small commercial helicopter” given special permission to fly between dirt landing strips in the Dominican Republic and Port-au-Prince. The Dominicans have otherwise sealed their border with Haiti, shutting down air travel and hastily constructing a border fence.
“Some in the diplomatic community in Port-au-Prince worry about where gang attacks could turn next,” CNN added.
“Due to the very tense security situation in Haiti, the German ambassador and the permanent representative in Port-au-Prince left for the Dominican Republic today together with representatives from the EU delegation,” the German Foreign Ministry confirmed on Sunday.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry remains unable to return to Haiti after a visit to Kenya, leaving the capital city largely under the control of Haiti’s most feared gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry speaks during the new cabinet inauguration at the Prime Minister’s residence in Port-au-Prince on November 24, 2021. (VALERIE BAERISWYL/AFP via Getty Images)
“Unfortunately, Barbecue is now the most powerful man in Haiti,” consultant Judes Jonathas told the UK Guardian on Sunday.
Gangs launched massive attacks against government buildings over the weekend, including at least three police stations and the unoccupied presidential residence, the National Palace. The Associated Press (AP) spotted a civilian woman writhing in pain on the sidewalk after she was hit by a stray bullet during one of the gang attacks.
The AP said police are having a hard time securing government buildings because terrified citizens are taking refuge in them:
“We are the ones who pay taxes, and we need to have shelter,” said one woman, who did not give her name for safety reasons.
Another Port-au-Prince resident, who also did not give his name, described the massive attacks Friday.
“They (the gangs) came with big guns. We have no guns and we cannot defend ourselves. All of us, the children are suffering,” said the man.
Law enforcement sources described the weekend gang attacks to ABC News as “coordinated and swift, with different groups simultaneously targeting multiple government buildings.” Heavy gunfire and explosions were heard across the city.
ABC’s sources said the gangs want to occupy the National Palace, which was heavily damaged in the 2010 earthquake and has been unoccupied since President Jovenel Moise’s assassination in 2021, to strike an “enormously symbolic blow to Haiti’s efforts to fight organized crime and its ongoing rebellion in the country.”
First lady Martine Moise, center, attends a memorial service for her late husband, President Jovenel Moise, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 21, 2021. A convicted drug trafficker pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court Friday, March 24, 2023, to participating in the assassination of Haiti’s president in 2021. (Odelyn Joseph, File/AP)
An emergency meeting of the CARICOM alliance of Caribbean nations is scheduled for Monday, with envoys from the U.S., Canada, and the United Nations invited to attend. The meeting was reportedly delayed until the U.S. and other countries could finish evacuating their diplomatic staff from Haiti.
“Criminals have now taken over the country. There is no government, it is becoming a failed society,” warned Guyana Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo.
Guy Philippe, a leader of the 2004 coup in Haiti who returned to the country last year after serving a prison sentence in the United States, said on Friday that Ariel Henry should resign. He suggested himself as a possible interim leader, citing his experience as the chief of police.
“I think he should stay where he is now … and let Haitians decide their fate,” Philippe said of Henry.
The Biden administration has reportedly pressured Henry to resign and begin a “political transition” to a new government. Henry, who has been in power since Moise was assassinated, is dismissed as illegitimate by many Haitians. He has refused to hold elections on four occasions, most recently in February, when he said elections might be possible in August 2025.
Gang leaders like Cherizier seized the opportunity to topple Henry’s government when he departed for his trip to Kenya and vowed to fight savagely to keep him from returning. Cherizier said last week that Haiti will be headed “straight to genocide” if the international community continues supporting Henry’s rule.
