Haiti crisis: US embassy staff, German ambassador evacuated as gang violence spirals
- US military airlifts embassy personnel from Haiti as Caribbean nation reels under a state of emergency
- Operation was the latest sign of Haiti’s troubles as gang violence threatens to bring down the government
With Haiti’s capital spiraling deeper into gang violence, members of several diplomatic missions, including staff from the United States and the German ambassador, began leaving Port-au-Prince on Sunday.
Beleaguered residents were scrambling for safety following the latest spasm of unrest, with a UN group warning of a “city under siege” after armed attackers targeted the presidential palace and police headquarters.
Criminal groups, which already control much of Port-au-Prince as well as roads leading to the rest of the country, have unleashed havoc in recent days as they try to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry as leader of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.
The US military said early Sunday it had “conducted an operation to augment the security of the US embassy at Port-au-Prince, allow our embassy mission operations to continue, and enable non-essential personnel to depart”.
An “airlift of personnel into and out of the embassy” was also in place, “consistent with our standard practice for embassy security augmentation,” the statement from the military’s US Southern Command added.
