According to the latest figures from the United Nations, 100,000 people have left the capital Port-au-Prince to escape armed gangs. A disaster scenario haunts the authorities: that of an extension of chaos elsewhere in the country. Example in Cap-Haitien, in the Nord department, the country’s second city, a locality until now relatively spared from violence.
2 mins
With our special correspondents in Cap-Haitien, Vincent Souriau And Boris Vicith
It’s a puzzle that requires a lot of skill. On the one hand, we must not stigmatize the displaced people who take all the risks to leave Port-au-Prince, traumatized families who left everything behind overnight. On the other hand, there is this security cordon, essential to prevent the infiltration of criminal profiles. The town hall of Cap-Haïtien asks all those arriving from Port-au-Prince to register on the municipal lists.
If you intend to reside in the city, you must provide your identity: your original address, your telephone details, so that the authorities have a trace of your entry. The measure is reassuring on paper, but of course insufficient. Just look at the records: in two weeks, barely more than fifteen people showed up at town hall, a paltry figure compared to the flood of people fleeing the capital. Hundreds, even thousands of Haitians, therefore joined incognito the second city in the country. Which does not mean that the gangs are rushing to Cap-Haitien: very often, they are poorly informed civilians who were not aware of this process.
For two years, the justice system has nevertheless observed a resurgence, a surge in crime. But the government commissioner – the equivalent of the public prosecutor – explained to us his criminal policy, which for the moment is bearing fruit: nipping in the bud the areas of micro-banditry that may appear in his jurisdiction, by launching , very early, as soon as serious offenses are reported, targeted police operations.
Divisional inspector Harold Jean, the police spokesperson in Cap-Haitien, insists on the crucial role of the region’s inhabitants: “ From March to April, police responded to over a hundred cases where people called to tell us they noticed strangers in their community “. Before that, ” in the last two years, police dismantled a set of gangs that operated in the suburbs of Cap-Haitien and other areas of the department. Which has given us the climate of peace that we currently experience. » And the police, continues Harlod Jean, continue to dismantle the gangs.
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