INFAMOUS warlord Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier has said more bloodshed is coming to Haiti and told foreign troops to back off in a chilling warning.
The once-picturesque Port-au-Prince has turned into a bloody warzone following weeks of gang-led violence as rotting bodies litter the most dangerous city on earth.
Rumoured to have earned his nickname for setting his victims on fire, Barbecue is at the eye of the storm as the capital spirals into an all-out civil war.
The vicious kingpin has now said that a recent halt in the fighting is merely a technical pause.
“There is nothing calm, but when you’re fighting you have to know when to advance and when to retreat,” he told Sky News.
“I think every day that passes we are coming up with a new strategy so we can advance, but there’s nothing calm.
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“In the days that are coming things will get worse than they are now…”
Political groups in Haiti, monitored by CARICOM, the Caribbean economic union of countries, are attempting to create a transitional council to take over the country once Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is currently in the United States, steps down.
Barbecue has stated that they “respect CARICOM a lot,” but he sees the process as unrepresentative of common people’s concerns and a smokescreen to allow “corrupt politicians” and “corrupt oligarchs” to continue governing the nation.
The Haiti warlord added that he would consider a ceasefire, as well as peace and political talks, as long as him and his gangs are included in the process.
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He said: “If the international community comes with a detailed plan where we can sit together and talk, but they do not impose on us what we should decide, I think that the weapons could be lowered.
“We don’t believe in killing people and massacring people, we believe in dialogue, we have weapons in our hand and it’s with the weapons that we must liberate this country.
“At the moment we haven’t got to the point where we should put down our weapons, because the people here don’t want to listen to reason.
“We have been hearing about dialogue for more than two or three years.”
City under siege
Bodies are piling up on the streets of Port-au-Prince which is engulfed in an all-out civil war between more than 200 gangs, a weak police force and more recently citizen-led death squads.
For more than two years, warring factions have been tearing Port-au-Prince apart and turned every day into a fight for survival.
But Haiti has been rocked by a surge of unrest since February when armed groups raided a prison, releasing more than 5,000 inmates, and demanded Prime Minister Ariel Henry resign.
After weeks of anarchy, the de facto PM said he would step down last week – a demand of the increasingly powerful and unified gangs.
However, the unprecedented violence has continued as Henry remains stranded outside the country.
The state has been largely absent during the violence and Haiti’s outmanned and outgunned police are ill-equipped against the gangs which are seeking to expand their territorial control of the capital city.
Plans for an international security mission, requested by Henry in 2022, remain on hold.
The US estimates roughly 1000 of its citizens are trapped in the Caribbean country as its military scrambles to evacuate them.
The capital’s port and airport are still being blockaded by gangs, while police stations, public buildings and other state facilities have been attacked.
The violence has exacerbated an already grim humanitarian situation, with warnings of famine, malnutrition and the collapse of basic services.
More than 1.5million Haitians are at risk of famine and 360,000 Haitians – half of them being children – have been displaced, according to aid agencies.
Philippe Branchat, chief of the International Organization for Migration, said in a statement: “People living in the capital are locked in, they have nowhere to go.
“The capital is surrounded by armed groups and danger. It is a city under siege.”
Urgent aid
Haiti now needs between 4,000 and 5,000 international police to help tackle catastrophic gang violence which is targeting key individuals and hospitals, schools, banks and other critical institutions, a UN rights expert said.
Last July, William ONeill said Haiti needed between 1,000 and 2,000 international police trained to deal with gangs.
Today, he said the situation is so much worse that double that number and more are needed to help the Haitian National Police regain control of security and curb human rights abuses.
ONeill spoke at a news conference launching a UN Human Rights Office report he helped produce which called for immediate action to tackle the cataclysmic situation in Haiti.
The report, covering the five-month period ending in February, said gangs continue to recruit and abuse boys and girls, with some children being killed for trying to escape.
Gangs also continue to use sexual violence to brutalize, punish and control people, the report said, citing women raped during gang attacks in neighborhoods, in many cases after seeing their husbands killed in front of them.
In 2023, the number of people killed and injured as a result of gang violence increased significantly with 4,451 killed and 1,668 injured, the report said. And up to March 22 this year, the numbers skyrocketed to 1,554 killed and 826 injured.
As a result of the escalating gang violence, so-called self-defence brigades have taken justice into their own hands, the report said, and at least 528 cases of lynching were reported in 2023 and a further 59 in 2024.
ONeill said re-establishing security is key, and getting the international security force on the ground in Haiti is critical and urgent.
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“Were still waiting and every day lost means more people die, and more women and girls get raped, and more people flee their homes,” he said.
“So the sooner the better.”
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Juliana Cruz Lima
