Haiti’s National Police Agency has successfully retrieved a hijacked cargo ship loaded with rice after a five-hour gunfight with gangs. The incident, which occurred on Saturday off the coast of Port-au-Prince, saw two police officers injured and an unknown number of gang members killed. The police department, which has been struggling to curb gang violence since February 29, scored a rare victory.
According to the police’s statement on Sunday, the hijacking was carried out by members of two gangs, namely the Taliban gang and 5 Seconds. The transport ship, Magalie, was seized on Thursday as it departed from the port of Varreux, and the gangs kidnapped everyone on board and stole 10,000 sacks of rice from the 60,000 sacks it was carrying. The ship was headed to Cap-Haitien, a northern coastal city.
In other news, the Taliban gang was reported to have used a front loader to demolish a police station in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Canaan, where at least four police officers were killed in a recent attack. The station is no longer operational. On Monday, police used megaphones to order the evacuation of the Champ de Mars area near the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince as heavy gunfire erupted nearby.
The recent gunfight between police and gangs is the latest in over a month of gunmen targeting key government infrastructure. They have burned down several police stations, fired at the main international airport (which is now closed), and raided Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing over 4,000 inmates.
The ongoing violence has forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to announce his resignation as soon as a transitional presidential council is formed. The attacks began while he was in Kenya, advocating for the U.N.-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country. Henry remains locked out of Haiti due to the situation.