section_path: History (since 2023)/2024/Instability and roadblocks causing medical and food insecurity across the country
section_name: Instability and roadblocks causing medical and food insecurity across the country
paragraph_text: Instability and roadblocks causing medical and food insecurity across the country
  
  On 15 March, police entered Delmas in an attempt to capture the gang leader Chérizier. The next day, they attempted to secure the principal port in Port-au-Prince, closed since 7 March due to the violence. On 17 March, a UNICEF aid container carrying critical items for infants and mothers was looted in the port, while 60% of hospitals nationally were unable to operate due to medicine and fuel shortages. Looting and vandalism at St. Francis de Sales hospital in Port-au-Prince caused damage estimated at US$3 million. Up to 20% of medical staff had left Haiti by the beginning of the year. Even before violence escalated shutting down all but one of the capital's hospitals, Haiti had the worst conditions for childbirth in Latin America and the Caribbean, with only "war-torn countries like Sudan and Yemen " having higher mortality rates.
  
  Gangs also raided a power station and four substations, stealing equipment and leaving parts of the capital Port-au-Prince without power. On 18 March, 14 bodies were found after a gang attack in Petion-ville, a wealthy neighborhood. Police came to rescue an administrative judge when his home was attacked. UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell compared the anarchy to the film Mad Max.
  
  On 19 March, Le Nouvelliste reported that outside of the capital, schools and universities remained open and that activity in cities such as Cap-Haïtien, Jacmel, and Jérémie was relatively normal. Throughout the country, prices were rising, with agricultural products spoiling in warehouses. Banks ran out of cash and experienced liquidity problems in several areas, while the health sector and public transportation were also disrupted. Public transportation union leaders painted a grim picture of kidnappings and brigandage on the roads, as armed gangs continued their nearly 3-year-long control of the national highway system, demanding tolls to allow traffic to pass. With the closure of the Port-au-Prince airport, all travellers within the country were forced to use the dangerous roads. Of the 33,000 people who fled the capital in the two weeks following the escalation of violence, 90% did so by bus.
  
  On 22 March, a police union representative said that officers in the capital were unable to cash their paychecks at the state bank. No ships had entered the container port since 5 March, and the sound of primarily US-made assault rifles could be heard throughout the capital. According to the WFP, nearly half the population was going hungry, with over 1.6 million on the edge of starvation (IPC-4) with pockets in or near the capital (Croix-des-Bouquets and Cité Soleil) risking a return to the catastrophic (IPC-5) levels at the end of 2022. According to Le Nouvelliste, "one of the worst-hit areas is the Artibonite Valley —the country's bread basket—where gangs took possession of land and stole harvests".
  
  On 27 March, it was announced that the U.S. would provide $10 million worth of surplus helmets, bulletproof vests, weapons, and ammunition to the Haitian national police, though U.S. funding for the Multinational Security Support was stalled. Also 170 French nationals and 70 others had been evacuated that week by special forces aboard Cougars and Caracals flown into Fort-de-France for transport on the helicopter carrier Tonnerre.
  
  While police were tied up with the 1 April gang attack on the National Palace, fires were set in the administrative building of the nearby Petit Séminaire Collège Saint-Martial. Four cars parked in the courtyard were completely burnt and others vandalised. Computers, refrigerators, mattresses, generators, water purifiers, and solar panels were stolen during the six-hour attack. Two days later, the National Library was pillaged of furniture and the generator damaged. The previous week the École nationale supérieure had been set aflame and the National School of Arts was looted along with 10 pharmacies, and two hospitals.
  
  On 6 April, police were able to regain control of the Magalie, a freighter at the Varreux terminal in Port-au-Prince whose crew had been kidnapped and whose cargo had been looted of 10,000 bags of rice by the 5 Seconds and Taliban gangs two days earlier. Neither the rice nor the crew members were recovered in the operation. The Taliban gang was also reported to have destroyed a police station in the Canaan suburb with a front loader.
  
  Through 20 May 2024, civilian flights into Toussaint Louverture International Airport remained suspended, though authorities had nationalized space around the perimeter of the airport and torn down 350 buildings to create a security buffer zone. On November 12, a Spirit Airlines flight attendant was injured by gunfire. The U.S. FAA ordered all air traffic diverted to Cibao International Airport of Santiago de los Caballeros, in the Dominican Republic after at least three planes were targeted while landing at Toussaint Louverture