Inside world’s most dangerous city ruled by 200 gangs & vicious warlord named ‘Barbecue’ who ‘burns victims alive’
CHAOS, explosions, gunfire and bodies rotting among the rubbish – welcome to the most dangerous city on Earth.
Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince is a crumbling but resilient city under siege from heavily armed gangs and ongoing political turmoil.
Haiti has long-suffered the title of the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, and the crime-ridden capital bares the brunt of overlapping crises.
Persistent earthquakes, soaring inflation, civil unrest, famine and a near-total political collapse all blight Port-au-Prince.
Yet, its biggest enemy? The 200 merciless armed gangs that inflict terror, sexual violence, torture and lawlessness.
Experts told The Sun Online that the crisis is already at breaking point as up to 20 people are killed per day in a wave of murders.
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The most dangerous of these gangs is the so-called G9 coalition led by a warlord known as "Barbecue" - rumoured to have earned his nickname for setting his victims on fire.
Warring factions have torn the city apart and turned every day into a fight for survival.
IN THE GRIPS OF GANGS
Haiti was left wounded from the still unsolved assassination of President Jovenal Moïse in July 2021, which plunged the country into further instability and unrest.
With no functioning government, a power vacuum has trailed in its wake – ready to be exploited.
“Armed violence has reached unimaginable and intolerable levels,” Michelle Bachelet, the outgoing United Nations human rights chief, warned the world in May.
Now, the UN predicts that the deadly gangs control 60 per cent of Port-au-Prince – patrolling and barricading its streets and terrorising the city’s population.
“The gang phenomenon has become a metastasized cancer where they control the capital in all its peripheries,” said Dr Djems Olivier from Vincennes-Saint-Denis University, whose research specialises in the gangs of Haiti.
He told The Sun Online that the crumbling capital city has been transformed into a “barricaded metropolis” by the armed militia, who have "the right of life and death over the entire population".
New waves of gang warfare led to a summer of violence in 2022 as gangs fought over territory and clashes viciously erupted, spreading to previously peaceful areas.
over 1,300 killings, injuries and disappearances between June and September, amounting to around 20 killed per day in the capital and thousands forced from their homes.
Their power and violence has multiplied by organising themselves into fierce territorial coalitions, the largest of which are the G-9 and G-Pèp.
“Children could be hit by a stray bullet when they're on their way to school."
A UN spokesperson informed The Sun Online: “Local populations are increasingly targeted by gangs.”
“Armed gangs use rape, including collective rapes, and other forms of sexual violence to instil fear, punish, subjugate, and inflict pain on local populations,” the spokesperson warned.
Roads, markets and ports count as economic sources, but also people, Walker explained. The more people you control, the more you can extort.
In 2004, the UN called it “the most dangerous place on earth”. Today, it’s worse.
“For Haitians, gang violence is at crisis point. They don't know what to do, and how this is going to be solved,” Walker told The Sun Online.
BREAKING POINT
Suffering and decaying, Port-au-Prince faces .
Cases of cholera began to mount in October, exposing the city to a new humanitarian threat, whilst gender-based violence escalates at a relentless pace.
Port-au-Prince native Emmanuel, who has not given his real name due to security reasons, works with the most vulnerable in gang-controlled communities, particularly women and girls who have survived sexual violence.
"People talk about resilience, but resilience is myth, they are alive and with what little they have they keep going," Emmanuel told The Sun Online.
"We have seen the severely traumatised, who have lost everything, witnessed atrocities, are destitute and are just living on the edge but keep going blindly.
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"People are hanging on by a thread."
In a call to action for international community, he warns: "the breaking point has occurred, people have already broken, the red lights have been ran."