Gangs deploy new strategies in Port-au-Prince

They carry out discreet incursions, place traps in the streets, dig ditches by the roadside, open passages through gullies or perforate walls to sneak into buildings, according to residents surveyed by AyiboPost from affected neighborhoods

The bandits of Port-au-Prince are adapting to the presence of the international force led by Kenya.

They carry out discreet incursions, place traps in the streets, dig ditches by the roadside, open passages through gullies or perforate walls to sneak into buildings, according to residents surveyed by AyiboPost from targeted neighborhoods.

On the night of February 24 to 25, they attacked the Delmas 30 neighborhood – without opening fire in the first moments.

A local citizen had just gone to bed when he was startled awake by the roar of flames emanating from a burning house not far from his.

“I didn’t immediately think of a gang attack. I told myself that if this was the case, the neighborhood brigade would have warned us,” the 29-year-old man explained to AyiboPost. He requests anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Delmas 30 sees hundreds of public transport cars pass by every day. The area is home to, among others, a branch of the National Old Age Insurance Office (ONA) and a Sogebank location.

It also provides direct access to the National Television of Haiti, located between Delmas 31 and 33 as well as other companies on the eponymous highway.

The attack at the end of February came as a surprise.

“It was only when they passed the barricades stationed at the entrance that they started shooting at people and setting fires,” a videographer in the area told AyiboPost. The professional says he had to leave in the middle of the night with his little brother.

Since the latest assaults on Solino and Nazon last year, the Delmas 30 neighborhood located nearby has been on high alert against potential gang incursions.

Between the end of January and February 2025, several armed attacks took place in different neighborhoods of the metropolitan region of Port-au-Prince.

These attacks come a year after those launched in February and March 2024 which led to inmates escaping two of the country’s largest prisons – the National Penitentiary and the Croix-des-Bouquets prison – as well as the closure of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport.

Early in the morning of March 4, 2025, the gangs reached the only remaining road leading south through Kenscoff.

This stretch, which has become increasingly busy, was the last overland route linking Port-au-Prince and the southern peninsula of the country as armed groups exercise complete control over the roads passing through Martissant, imposing tolls on drivers.

Holed up in the locality of Kafou Bèt since the January attacks, the bandits passed through Nan Kovi and Zoranje, to arrive at Nan Pierre Paul, to the Badio junction near Kenscoff.

“Once in Badio, they cordoned off this stretch of road,” reports Emmanuel Pierre, administrator of the Kenscoff city hall, adding that gangs are still active on the road. According to the official, this is preventing any traffic for the time being.

One thing puzzles the municipal official: during these latest attacks, the armed men did not fire a bullet. “They broke into people’s homes,” explains the city hall administrator.

As early as January, gang activity in certain downtown neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince began to worry residents, according to two sources contacted by AyiboPost who witnessed these operations.

An entrepreneur established for 25 years on Rue Lysius Salomon, at the Salomon Market in the city center, says he noticed several excavations at the market and in the surrounding area that could potentially hinder the circulation of the security forces’ armored vehicles.

“On the night of January 25 to 26, 2025, the bandits tore down the walls of my business and emptied three-quarters of my goods valued at one million gourdes,” the 67-year-old entrepreneur complains to AyiboPost.

Following this attack which ruined his construction materials business, the man had to move the remaining stocks of merchandise into a space provided to him by a friend in Canapé-Vert.

The bandits have controlled the Salomon Market for over a month. The site which supplied Port-au-Prince with various food products and construction materials remains inaccessible to shoppers.

In March 2024, bandits attacked and then set fire to the sub-police station located inside the Salomon Market.

To better dominate the area and avoid encountering police patrols, gang members created clandestine passages through houses located on Avenue Magloire Ambroise, Rue Roy, Rue Waag, Rue Chavannes and Rue Romain, a resident of the area tells AyiboPost.

The bandits have controlled the Salomon Market for over a month. The site which supplied Port-au-Prince with various food products and construction materials remains inaccessible to shoppers.

“They are equipped with sledgehammers and chisels to puncture or break the walls,” he says. A year later, they continue to expand their scope of influence.

These operations take place at night, specifies the resident, and to muffle the noise, “they use pieces of carpet which they apply to the walls before knocking them down. »

Early in the morning of January 26, the bandits broke through the fence of a 60-year-old woman’s home living with her two grandchildren on Rue Roy, not far from Avenue Christophe.

The gangs partially looted her house, leaving with money and her television. Upon their arrival, “they ordered not to call the police,” she said.

The bandits also asked if there were any men in the house. Which suggests that they are more violent with men, the lady reckons.

On the evening of February 16, the bandits returned to the house. This time they came with a truck to take the furniture.

They also looted four other houses on the same street, forcing their owners to flee.

In mid-February, 18 months after the deadly attacks of August 2023, the Grand Ravin gang led by Renel Destina (alias Ti Lapli) attacked several neighborhoods of Carrefour-Feuille again, including Saïeh and Impasse Eddy.

During these attacks, some gangs targeted homes where police officers reside, after collecting information on them.

Several witnesses in the area interviewed by AyiboPost report that strangers quietly entered certain places over the past two weeks.

***

Several indicators pointed to new attacks in a number of neighborhoods located in the city center, such as Ruelle Alerte and the Salomon Market as well as surrounding areas, such as Carrefour-Feuille and Fort National, according to the two sources cited above.

Between the end of January and the beginning of February, the bandits positioned propane gas cylinders in certain locations.

“They placed them on Rue Brutus, leading onto Avenue Magloire Ambroise, not far from the Champ de Mars, in order to hinder any potential police interventions,” explains one of the sources.

According to residents of the area, the gangs want to advance towards the Champ de Mars in order to attack the Port-au-Prince police station, the base of the Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of Order (UDMO) and the National Palace, in particular.

An UDMO agent confides that he has been made aware of the gangs’ activities around the Salomon Market and on Avenue Magloire Ambroise for the past two months.

“Bandits do everything they can to operate while remaining out of reach of the police. They circulate in gullies and through houses whose walls they’ve perforated,” explains the policeman.

In an interview to AyiboPost in January 2025, this agent criticized the security forces’ strategy for fighting gangs from inside armored tanks.

The bandits do everything they can to operate while remaining out of reach of the police. They circulate in gullies and through houses whose walls they’ve perforated.

– explains the policeman

“The gangs are patient. They insist until they find an opening,” explains the police officer to AyiboPost, insisting on the need for the authorities to deploy significant resources in order to increase the police control perimeters and repel the armed groups who want to advance towards critical areas, including the Palace and the Port-au-Prince police station.

On February 27, an attack on the Port-au-Prince police station at Champ de Mars was rebuffed by the police.

The presidential security coordinator, Vladimir Paraison, was shot in the leg during these attacks, according to a note from the presidency.

***

Pursued by terror, since February, many families have been forced to flee Delmas 30, 19, 17, Tabarre 27, 28, Fort National and Route de Frères, not far from the police academy.

These new waves of gang violence have already resulted in the displacement of 24,155 people, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) report published on February 28.

Nearly half of these displaced people come from the commune of Port-au-Prince.

***

According to the principal mayor of Tabarre, Arsonval Alexandre, contacted by AyiboPost, this municipality is coveted for its commercial activities as well as its “strategic position,” which facilitates access to other municipalities, including Delmas.

“Bandits want to seize Tabarre to collect taxes from local businesses and finance their terrorist activities,” he declares, recalling that Tabarre is the only commune in the Cul-de-Sac plain where a police presence and an established authority remains.

In the wake of the armed attacks against Delmas 17 and 19 on February 26, the Simon Pelé gangs, led by Djouma, demanded that drivers using the Piste road to reach the Piste Market should henceforth use the road passing through their stronghold in Simon Pelé.

A taxi driver who recently used this route explains to AyiboPost that the gangs took this decision in order to impose a right of way on drivers.

“They forced me to pay 500 gourdes in order to pass,” explains this motorcycle taxi driver.

The attacks perpetrated against Delmas 30 on the night of February 24 to 25 left at least 20 dead, according to the findings of Lambert Augustin, a lawyer at the Mirebalais bar and a resident of the area for 40 years.

That night, the bandits infiltrated Delmas 30 using 4 distinct locations.

One of the groups entered through Carrefour Samida, which is on Avenue Poupelard. Two others passed through Nazon, in an area called Sylvio Cator, with one entering behind the Carrefour de l’Aéroport sub-police station.

Lastly, the fourth entered through a gully, coming from the Piste aviation area.

According to the professional who is heavily involved in various initiatives in the neighborhood, “the gangs wanted to take revenge on Delmas 30, burn down the National Old Age Insurance Office (ONA) building, and move on to Delmas 48.”

Since last year, several individuals suspected of colluding with armed groups have been killed in Delmas 30 by vigilante groups. This is said to have incited revenge on the part of the armed gangs, according to residents interviewed by AyiboPost.

On March 1, 2025, the government announced interventions carried out in lower Delmas by the Haitian National Police (PNH), through a “Task Force”. A structure put in place by the government and the Transitional Presidential Council, according to a note from the primature.

Contacted by AyiboPost, the deputy spokesperson for the PNH, Lionel Lazarre, declared “not knowing anything about such a structure.”

The Multinational Security Support Mission (MMAS) led by Kenya, present in the country for eight months to combat the gangs, “is not part of this structure,” according to a senior official of the mission contacted by AyiboPost, specifying that the MMAS is currently carrying out, alongside the PNH, operations in Bas-Delmas, stronghold of gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, known as Barbecue.

In one of his videos posted online this week, Barbecue deplores the death of 16 people and 4 others injured during these interventions where “drones loaded with explosives” were allegedly used.

AyiboPost was unable to independently verify these facts.

On March 8, a video posted online by the Haitian National Police announced interventions carried out in the lower part of the city of Port-au-Prince on Friday, March 7, 2025, in order to remove the barricades and traps placed by the bandits, namely at Avenue Magloire Ambroise and at the Salomon Market.

The authorities have yet to present any official assessment of the measures announced by the government in Bas-Delmas since March 1.

In his video, Jimmy Chérizier, spokesperson for the Viv Ansanm gang coalition, threatens to “in turn” use explosive devices during future exactions by his men.

“We can also obtain this equipment. Anyone can, as long as they have the means,” threatens the gang leader.

By Wethzer Piercin, Jérôme Wendy Norestyl , Rolph Louis-Jeune & Fenel Pélissier

Cover : Portrait illustration of gang leaders, Barbecue with a photo of a chess game. Collage: Florentz Charles / ©AyiboPost | 09 mars 2025

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