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The Federal Aviation Administration in the United States announced Tuesday that it was prohibiting US airlines from flying to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot three planes and the United Nations temporarily suspended flights to Port-au-Prince, limiting humanitarian aid coming into the country.
Bullets hit a Spirit Airlines plane when it was about to land in the country’s capital Monday, injuring a flight attendant and forcing the airport to shut down. Photos and videos obtained by The Associated Press show bullet holes dotting the interior of a plane.
On Tuesday, JetBlue and American Airlines announced that postflight inspections found their planes also had been shot Monday while departing Port-au-Prince. American suspended flights to the capital until February 12.
The shootings were part of a wave of violence that erupted as the country plagued by gang violence swore in its new prime minister after a politically tumultuous process.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the agency documented 20 armed clashes and more roadblocks affecting humanitarian operation during the violence Monday. The Port-au-Prince airport will remain closed until November 18, and Dujarric said the UN will divert flights to the country’s second airport in the northern, more peaceful, city of Cap Haïtien.
Dujarric warned that cutting off flights would mean “limiting the flow of humanitarian aid and humanitarian personnel into the country”.
Already, a convoy of 20 trucks filled with food and medical supplies in the south had been postponed and an operation providing cash assistance to a thousand people in the Carrefour area where violence broke out had to be cancelled.
“We are doing all we can to ensure the continuation of operations amidst this challenging environment,” he said. “We call for an end to the escalating violence, to allow for safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access.”
On Tuesday, life in much of Haiti’s capital was frozen after the wave of violence. Heavily armed police in armoured cars outside the airport checked trucks used for public transportation passing by.
Schools were closed, as were banks and government offices. Streets, where just a day before gangs and police were locked in a fierce firefight, were eerily empty, with few driving by other than a motorcycle with a man who had been shot clinging to the back.
The United Nations estimates that gangs control 85 per cent of the capital, Port-au-Prince. A UN-backed mission led by Kenyan police to quell gang violence struggles with a lack of funding and personnel, prompting calls for a UN peacekeeping mission.
President Luis Abinader in the Dominican Republic, which shares a border with Haiti, was the first leader on the island to condemn the violence, describing the shooting a “terrorist act”.
On Tuesday, a transitional council established in April to restore democratic order to Haiti also condemned the violence.
The council has taken sharp criticism from many in Haiti who contend that its political fights and corruption allegations against three members created the political instability, allowing gangs to make violent power grabs like the one seen Monday.
That came to a head over the weekend, when it fired former interim Prime Minister Garry Conille – long at odds with the council. They replaced him with businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who was inaugurated Monday surrounded by suit-clad officials and diplomats while gangs terrorised the capital around them.
Neither Fils-Aimé or Conille have commented on the wave of violence.
On Tuesday, the US State Department lamented that Conille and the council “were unable to move forward in a constructive manner” and called on Fils-Aimé and the council to provide a clear action plan outlining a joint vision on how to decrease violence and pave the path for elections to be held to “prevent further gridlock”.
“The acute and immediate needs of the Haitian people mandate that the transitional government prioritise governance over the competing personal interests of political actors,” it wrote in a statement.
AP
English (US) ·