The United States on Tuesday extended its ban on flights to Haiti’s capital until Sept. 8 because of escalating gang violence, which the U.N.’s human rights expert on the Caribbean nation said is more dire than ever.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s announcement extends a ban on U.S. flights to Port-au-Prince that began in November after gangs opened fire on three commercial planes. The initial ban was set to expire on Wednesday.
William O’Neill, the U.N. human rights commissioner’s expert on Haiti, who just visited the country for the fourth time since his appointment two years ago, told U.N. reporters on Tuesday that the gang violence is worse, as is “the pain and despair of an entire population.”
Despite efforts by Haiti’s national police and a U.N.-backed Kenya-led multinational police force, he said, “the risk of the capital falling under gang control is palpable.”
“These violent criminal groups continue to extend and consolidate their hold even beyond the capital,” O’Neill said. “They kill, rape, terrorize, set fire to homes, orphanages, schools, hospitals, places of worship.”
He said the gangs have infiltrated all spheres of society, “with the utmost impunity and, sometimes, as many sources point out, with the complicity of powerful actors,
Credit: NPR.ORG