Who is Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier? The gang leader bringing Haiti to its knees

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Armed gangs have tried to grab management of Haiti’s important worldwide airport, exchanging gunfire with police and troopers within the newest assault on key authorities websites.

An explosion of violence has taken place within the nation, together with a mass escape from the nation’s prisons.

Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier, a former elite police officer who now runs a gang federation, has claimed duty for the surge in assaults.

The Toussaint Louverture Worldwide Airport was closed when the assault occurred, with no planes working and no passengers on web site.

It’s the greatest assault on the airport in Haiti’s historical past.

Final week, the airport was struck briefly by bullets amid ongoing gang assaults, however gangs didn’t enter the airport nor seize management of it.

The assault occurred simply hours after authorities in Haiti ordered a night-time curfew following violence during which armed gang members overran the 2 greatest prisons and freed 1000’s of inmates over the weekend.

A 72-hour state of emergency started on Sunday night time. The federal government mentioned it will attempt to observe down the escaped inmates, together with from a penitentiary have been the overwhelming majority have been in pre-trial detention, with some accused of killings, kidnappings and different crimes.

Gangs already have been estimated to regulate as much as 80% of the capital Port-au-Prince. They’re more and more co-ordinating their actions and selecting as soon as unthinkable targets such because the Central Financial institution.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry travelled overseas final week to attempt to salvage help for a United Nations-backed safety drive to assist stabilise Haiti in its battle with the more and more highly effective crime teams.

Haiti’s Nationwide Police has roughly 9,000 officers to offer safety for greater than 11 million individuals, based on the UN. They’re routinely overwhelmed and outgunned.

The lethal weekend marked a brand new low in Haiti’s downwards spiral of violence. No less than 9 individuals had been killed since Thursday – 4 of them law enforcement officials – as gangs stepped up co-ordinated assaults on state establishments in Port-au-Prince, together with the nationwide soccer stadium.

However the assault on the Nationwide Penitentiary late Saturday shocked Haitians who’re accustomed to dwelling underneath the fixed menace of violence.

Nearly the entire estimated 4,000 inmates escaped. Three our bodies with gunshot wounds lay on the jail entrance on Sunday.

Among the many few dozen individuals who selected to remain in jail are 18 former Colombian troopers accused of working as mercenaries within the July 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise.

“Please, please assist us,” one of many males, Francisco Uribe, mentioned in a message broadly shared on social media. “They’re massacring individuals indiscriminately contained in the cells.”

Colombia’s overseas ministry has known as on Haiti to offer “particular safety” for the lads.

A second Port-au-Prince jail containing round 1,400 inmates was additionally overrun.

Gunfire was reported in a number of neighbourhoods within the capital. Web service for a lot of residents was down as Haiti’s high cellular community mentioned a cable connection was slashed throughout the rampage.

After gangs opened fireplace at Haiti’s worldwide airport final week, the US embassy mentioned it was halting all official journey to the nation. On Sunday night time, it urged all Americans to depart as quickly as attainable.

The Biden administration, which has refused to commit troops to any multinational drive for Haiti whereas providing cash and logistical help, mentioned it was monitoring the quickly deteriorating safety state of affairs with grave concern.

The surge in assaults follows violent protests that turned deadlier in current days because the prime minister went to Kenya looking for to maneuver forward on the proposed UN-backed safety mission to be led by that East African nation.

Jimmy Cherizier, a former elite police officer referred to as Barbecue who now runs a gang federation, has claimed duty for the surge in assaults. He mentioned the aim is to seize Haiti’s police chief and authorities ministers and stop Mr Henry’s return.

The prime minister, a neurosurgeon, has shrugged off requires him to resign and didn’t remark when requested if he felt it was protected to come back dwelling.

Why is there violence in Haiti?

A few of Haiti’s strongest gang leaders say their aim is bringing down Henry.

The nation has failed to carry parliamentary and normal elections lately and there aren’t any elected officers. Henry was sworn in as prime minister with the backing of the worldwide neighborhood after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The most recent spherical of assaults started in February after Henry pledged to carry long-awaited normal elections by mid-2025.

A map of Port-au-Prince in Haiti

Henry’s whereabouts weren’t public Monday. When requested in Kenya if it was protected for him to return to Haiti, Henry shrugged.

Who’s chargeable for the violence?

Jimmy Chirizier, a former elite police officer referred to as “Barbecue” who is taken into account one in every of Haiti’s strongest gang leaders, introduced as gunmen started to assault infrastructure that he would attempt to seize the nation’s police chief and authorities ministers.

4 law enforcement officials have been killed when their stations got here underneath siege.

Cherizier mentioned final summer time that he would battle any worldwide armed drive in the event that they dedicated abuses, and he urged Haitians to mobilize in opposition to the federal government.

Different gang leaders additionally seem like concerned in current assaults.

Johnson Andrï finest referred to as “Izo” and chief of the 5 Seconds gang, seems in a video posted on TikTok wielding a heavy mallet in his proper hand as he pretends to punch his face together with his left hand.

Izo’s gang is taken into account an ally of G-Pep, archenemy of Barbecue’s gang federation, however alliances have been shifting in current days.

A report launched final month by the World Initiative Towards Transnational Organized Crime discovered that “for the gangs, the event of alliances is a fluid phenomenon.”

It additionally famous how “solely probably the most highly effective gangs — corresponding to Izo’s or Chïrizier’s — are normally capable of function or profiteer exterior their fiefdoms.”

Barbecue is chief of a gang federation referred to as G9 Household and Allies, and he has beforehand launched highly effective assaults which have crippled the nation. In late 2022, he seized management of an space surrounding a key gas terminal within the capital of Port-au-Prince for nearly two months.

Why have the gangs turn into so highly effective?

An estimated 200 gangs exist in Haiti, with 23 important ones believed to be working within the metropolitan space of Port-au-Prince.

Up till current years, they managed some 60% of the capital, a quantity that has since grown to 80%, based on U.N. officers.

Smuggled firearms and ransom funds to kidnappers have allowed gangs to turn into extra financially impartial. That has elevated their energy because the state has weakened, and an underfunded and under-resourced police division has been unable to include them.

“Current-day gangs take pleasure in a a lot larger diploma of navy capability than these a decade in the past,” based on the World Initiative report. “This has largely been pushed by the gangs’ capacity to amass high-caliber weapons.”

A 2023 U.N. report acknowledged that recovered weapons destined for Haitian ports embrace “.50 caliber sniper rifles, .308 rifles, and even belt-fed machine weapons.”