A woman who fled her home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with her three young children says her family has been forced to move into a nearby church made of sheet metal because of the escalation of violence in the capital, where gangs have taken over about 80% of the streets.
“That’s where we sleep now,” Fabiola Luma, 35, said Monday by phone, referring to a small building, a church without a proper door. She described the constant sound of shootings, including people being shot inside their own homes.
“Things were never good before,” Luma said, describing the deteriorating situation in her neighborhood, Bon Repos, where the church is. They’ve been in the Protestant church since January of last year. “Now, with the gangs, life is worse.”
According to a United Nations report, at least 15,000 people in Haiti’s capital were displaced in just one week because of rampant gang violence that erupted again on March 2, when more than 4,000 inmates escaped from prison under the command of gang leader Jimmy Chérizier.
Luma, who used to work as a house cleaner, said her employers left town over a year ago, leaving her without an income.
At the beginning of the gang violence in Port-au-Prince, she said, “people were running away, and I didn’t have any place to go.” Many residents have fled, but those who cannot afford to leave, like Luma, have remained.
Luma said life in Port-au-Prince has long been a battle for survival, as rival gangs fight one another and leave behind a trail of blood and despair. In Bon Repos, gunshots ring out daily, and the threat of violence looms large, she said.
“I can sit inside and hear gunshots being fired,” she said. “At night, when I sleep in the church, I can see the fire lights from the gunshots through the sheet metal.”
Luma recounted a terrifying incident in which she and her children were held at gunpoint in January…
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