On Monday, Haiti’s new Prime Minister Garry Conille condemned the gang-related killings of three police officers ambushed in the capital by men under gang leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier.
The ambush occurred Sunday in Delmas 18, where armed men set a police patrol vehicle on fire. Two officers died at the scene, and another died later at the hospital.
Conille, sworn in this month, promised state aid for the victims’ families, calling the act a “direct attack on the security and stability of the nation.” His statement followed a brief hospitalization on Saturday.
The police union, SYNAPOHA, demanded action and the return of the victims’ bodies. Unverified videos online showed the charred patrol truck and seized firearms.
Cherizier later claimed the police had entered lower Delmas to kill and challenged them to recover the captured firearms.
Meanwhile, Kenyan President William Ruto announced that a long-awaited deployment of Kenyan police officers, set to lead a U.N.-sanctioned force, should arrive within weeks. Additional troops from Benin, Chad, Bangladesh, and the Caribbean are expected later. This international force, requested in 2022, has faced delays as gangs have tightened their grip on the capital, displacing hundreds of thousands and plunging millions into hunger.