Overview:
Northern departmental law enforcement officials have arrested 4 alleged criminals suspected of getting ties with a Port-au-Prince gang within the Saint-Raphaël commune. Rumors additionally unfold on social media that different gang members had been touring up north to spill over the area. Regardless of all of it, many Cap-Haïtien residents keep calm, considering their metropolis will stay secure.
Editor’s Word: Pierre Stevenson Joseph, The Haitian Instances’ collaborator in Cap-Haïtien, contributed images to this story.
MARYLAND — Regardless of the arrest of 4 people in Saint-Raphaël suspected of ties to a Port-au-Prince gang, Cap-Haïtien residents stay calm, rejecting rumors of gangs infiltrating their metropolis. Whereas social media fuels fears of gang violence spreading north, locals insist their metropolis’s security and powerful police presence make such threats unlikely.
Throughout one in all their operations, police arrested 4 people who, primarily based on their cellular phone information, presumably have ties to a gang in Port-au-Prince. The arrest was made in Saint-Raphaël, a northern commune, police told local reporter Gérard Maxineau. Particulars corresponding to the precise date of the arrest and the gang’s identification weren’t specified. Police declined The Haitian Instances’ request for remark.
Cap-Haïtien has change into Haiti’s go-to metropolis lately as escalating gang violence in Port-au-Prince drives occasions and journey northward. Many within the diaspora who used to journey to Port-au-Prince or used it as a secure connection level to the provinces have now been going via Cap-Haïtien as an alternative. If the town turns unsafe, as rumors counsel, Haitians would lose their different to Port-au-Prince, placing the nation in critical jeopardy.
“I don’t worry for my security. I’m removed from the police station, however I don’t fear about gang actions.”
Mickerlange Pierre, resident of Fort Saint-Michel, a neighborhood in Cap-Haïtien
Saint-Raphaël is positioned about 39 miles south of Cap-Haïtien. Regardless of the arrest of suspects presumably tied to an unidentified gang in Port-au-Prince, northerners refuse to imagine the rumors that Cap-Haïtien might change into unsafe like Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas.
“Town is good,” Dieuseul Jean, a three-wheel motorbike taxi driver, stated. “We don’t have gangs like these in Port-au-Prince. If we attain that degree, we’re doomed as a result of Okap is simply too small to carry it in.”
These dwelling within the comparatively peaceable quarters of Cap-Haïtien don’t imagine the rumors. Nonetheless, Haitians dwelling elsewhere, notably overseas, nonetheless worry the worst for Haiti.
Akmann Van-Mary, an entrepreneur who alternates between dwelling within the U.S. and Cap-Haïtien, has been having problem discovering enterprise companions outdoors of Cap-Haïtien due to the rumors.
“I’m all the time searching for buyers, alternatives, initiatives to convey to the town,” stated Van-Mary, who didn’t wish to establish his companies as a consequence of worry of retribution. “The work I’m doing slows down as a result of persons are listening to this and that.”
Cap-Haïtien police are too highly effective, and the town is simply too small for gangs to unfold, individuals say
It’s unknown the place the rumors got here from or what motivated them. Many Cap-Haïtien residents didn’t fall for them as a result of they firmly imagine that the police drive is simply too devoted to its work to permit gangs to unfold into the town.
“We now have to present again to the police,” Van-Mary stated. “Even when it’s choosing a day for them to have reductions at eating places.”
“Town is good. We don’t have gangs like these in Port-au-Prince. If we attain that degree, we’re doomed as a result of Okap is simply too small to carry it in.”
Dieuseul Jean, a three-wheel motorbike taxi driver in Cap-Haïtien
Residents additionally imagine that Cap-Haïtien is simply too small for gangs to unfold with out getting caught. Cap-Haïtien correct is about 21 sq. miles, whereas Port-au-Prince stretches to over 61 sq. miles. Because the metropolis is so small, if gang members penetrate it, residents say they’ll immediately discover that they’re not from the world and can contact the police.
Even after the arrest of people suspected to be linked to a gang in Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien residents nonetheless strongly imagine that gangs won’t be able to spill over their metropolis.
For example, Mickerlange Pierre has been sleeping with each eyes closed in his residence in Fort Saint-Michel, a neighborhood on the outskirts of downtown Cap-Haïtien. On the afternoon of Nov. 29, Pierre comfortably picked cherries within the entrance yard of his residence with out an inch of worry.
“I don’t worry for my security,” Pierre stated. “I’m removed from the police station, however I don’t fear about gang actions.”
In the meantime, Dieuseul Jean lives in Grand Bassin, a northeastern commune, and infrequently travels to Cap-Haïtien, particularly to observe his favourite soccer workforce, Affiliation Sportive Capoise (ASC), play. The video games typically finish late within the night. Nonetheless, when the season begins once more, he plans to proceed watching video games with out worry of felony gang actions within the metropolis.
“If ASC is enjoying, I’ll nonetheless be there with them,” Jean, 45, stated. “We’ll by no means have gangs terrorizing individuals in Okap.”