PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – The leader of one of Haiti’s main political parties has been killed in what appears to be a gang attack on a suburb of the capital, Port-au- Prince, several media reported on Saturday.
Eric-Jean Baptiste, secretary general of the Rally of Progressive National Democrats (RDNP), was returning home to the Laboule 12 district when several assailants riddled his car with bullets.
Asked by Reuters, the Haitian national police did not respond.
The Laboule 12 neighborhood is under threat of coming under the control of the Ti Makak gang, which in a few years has become one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country and which is involved in numerous extortion and kidnapping cases.
In August, former senator Yvon Buissereth was murdered in the same neighborhood and the authorities accused Ti Makak.
Tension in Port-au-Prince has worsened in recent weeks with the blockade of the Varreux fuel terminal by the G9 gang group (unrelated to Ti Makak), which says it is responding to the government’s plan to reduce subsidies on fuel and demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
The United Nations is considering sending an intervention force to Haiti to try to reduce the grip of the gangs and to reopen the Varreux terminal, but it is not yet known who could take the responsibility.
(Report Harold Isaac in Port-au-Prince and Brian Ellsworth in Sao Paulo, French version Marc Angrand)
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