Two US airlines suspend flights to Haiti amid rising violence

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JetBlue and Spirit Airlines have suspended flights to Haiti this week, sources at Port-au-Prince International Airport said, as a new surge in gang violence plagues the Caribbean nation.

Both US airlines canceled flights between Florida’s Fort Lauderdale and Port-au-Prince, although JetBlue maintained its direct flight from New York.

Neither airline has said publicly why the flights were suspended, although Haiti has seen a recent surge in gang violence in several neighborhoods of the capital and elsewhere.

A UN report released Wednesday said more than 10,000 people have been displaced by attacks in the past week around the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.

Haiti has been plagued by worsening political, humanitarian and security crises for years, but its plight escalated earlier this year when powerful armed gangs launched coordinated attacks that ultimately saw the unelected prime minister of the nation resigning.

An interim government has since been installed and an international support mission led by Kenya has been launched to support Haiti’s police force, although it has not yet reached the desired size.

Police struggled to wrest control of large parts of the capital from gangs as violence continued to escalate.

Earlier this week, attacks in the capital’s southern Solino district sent thousands fleeing and killed at least two women, one of whom was eight months pregnant, officials said.

The recent violence followed a major gang attack in early October in the central city of Pont-Sonde, where 115 civilians were killed and dozens injured.

The US embassy this week also reported that two of its armored vehicles had been shot at by gangs, although no injuries were reported.

And on Thursday, a helicopter operated by the World Food Program (WFP), a UN agency, was hit by gunfire while flying over Port-au-Prince.

It managed to land safely without injuring any of the 18 people on board.

“Uncertainty in Haiti continues as escalating violence by armed groups and food insecurity continue to turn Haiti into a spiraling crisis that requires urgent attention,” Waanja Kaaria, WFP’s Haiti director, told a news conference on Friday.

A recent WFP report said 5.4 million Haitians — about half the population — suffer from acute hunger.

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