Thousands try to flee Haiti as gangs terrorize innocent civilians
Marcia Biggs:
Victim to a wave of gang violence that has Haiti gripped with terror. Hundreds of thousands have fled, and now remaining residents are taking matters into their own hands.
Two weeks ago, an angry mob beat and then burned alive more than a dozen suspected gang members. It's fear and frustration born of a long-running economic and humanitarian crisis that worsened in July 2021, when President Jovenel Moise was assassinated.
Interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry didn't keep his promise to hold elections, and Haitian politics have since then fallen apart. Now criminal gangs have flourished where official authorities no longer govern.
Port-au-Prince is a city held hostage by gangs. We were just talking to some people here on the street about the situation. And they were terrified to speak. They said: "If I speak today, I will be dead tomorrow."
But, for women, the weapon of retribution is often rape. The U.N. estimates almost one-third of women and girls in Haiti have been the victims of sexual abuse or violence; 20-year-old Sousphanie has been on her own since her mother died last August. Her only family is her son, 17 month-old Ainslie.
His father is a man she had been involved with since she was 12 years old. But she says she never knew he was in a gang. We have hidden her face for her own safety.
Sousphanie, Victim of Gang Violence (through translator): The owner of the house where I rented a room told me that he didn't like when those type of people come to his house. At that time, I didn't believe him 100 percent.
It's later when I went to sell downtown and I saw him with a bunch of guys with machine guns, that is when I finally totally believed it that he was in a gang. That night, I told him not to ever come back.
Source: PBS NewsHour
