Gunfire booms in Haiti as politicians discuss to form interim gov’t

Gunfire rang out on Thursday in Haiti’s capital and “bandits” set a police official’s house ablaze, ending three days of relative calm as politicians pressed on with talks to form an interim governing body. The country has been convulsed for two weeks by a gang uprising, with the wellarmed groups saying they wanted to topple Prime Minister Ariel Henry, an unpopular and unelected leader.

Amid the conflict, which has come with warnings of famine and civil war, bodies have littered the streets in recent days as social order melted away.

Overnight Wednesday into Thursday and during the morning hours, a lull in fighting was broken as automatic weapons fire boomed in Port-au-Prince, which is 80 percent controlled by gangs.

Just outside Port-au-Prince, “bandits looted and then set fire to the residence of the director general of police” in Santo, the national police union said, adding that an officer was shot and wounded in the courtyard of police headquarters near the airport.

Overwhelmed by the violence, Haitian authorities extended a nighttime curfew until Sunday. Shots also broke out Thursday near the shuttered Toussaint Louverture Airport, where repairs were underway after gangs attacked it and other key infrastructure earlier this month.

US cruise operator Royal Caribbean said it was pausing stops in Labadee, on Haiti’s northern coast and far from Port-auPrince, “out of an abundance of caution.”

Embattled Prime Minister Henry had agreed to step aside after an emergency meeting Monday that brought together parties including the US, UN and Caribbean representatives, yielding a blueprint for Haitians to form a governing Transitional Presidential Council until elections can be held.

The transitional body is to have seven voting members drawn from political parties and the private sector, and is supposed to quickly name an interim prime minister.