(2 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – 02 March 2025
1. Protesters marching
2. Protester shouting at police
3. Police shooting tear gas
4. SOUNDBITE (Haitian Creole) Protester, no name given:
“We came here to give them ( the government) our demands. We demand freedom, we demand security. We need to be able to work and save our country.”
5. Protesters waving Haitian flag
6. Various of policemen in formation
7. Angry protester shouting at police UPSOUND (Haitian Creole) Protester: "You need to stage a coup. The population will stand with you. You should be on our side.”
8. Various of people passing by burned vehicles
STORYLINE:
Thousands of protesters clashed with police in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday as they denounced a surge in gang violence and demanded that the government keep them safe.
At least a dozen of them were heavily armed and opened fire on officers who responded just outside the offices of the prime minister and the transitional presidential council.
An AP journalist at the scene did not see anyone injured or killed.
It is the first major protest to hit the administration of Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, whom the council appointed as prime minister in November.
The whizzing bullets caused the large crowd to flee in panic.
The protest began peacefully earlier in the day, with some demonstrators brandishing machetes while others clutched tree boughs or waved palm fronds as they weaved their way through the streets of Port-au-Prince, where schools, banks and other businesses remained closed.
Flaming tires blocked roads as protesters chanted, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, and get them out!”
Discontent and anger is spreading as gangs that already control 85% of Port-au-Prince pillage once-peaceful communities in a bid to seize control of even more territory.
Protesters shouted at the police that they should be on their side.
Recent gang violence has forced more than 60,000 people to flee their homes in one month alone, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration.
During a visit to Port-au-Prince in early March, William O’Neill, the U.N. human rights commissioner’s expert on Haiti, described the capital as “an open-air prison,” noting there is no safe way to enter or leave except by helicopter.
Gangs also have pillaged communities beyond Port-au-Prince.
On Monday, they attacked the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti.
They stormed a prison, releasing more than 500 inmates as hundreds of residents fled their homes.
A recent U.N. report found that more than 4,200 people were reported killed across Haiti from July to February, and another 1,356 were injured.
AP Video shot by Pierre Luxama
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