(FixThisNation.com) – On Wednesday the State Department warned that all U.S. citizens should leave Haiti because of the security concerns in the country. This is the latest in a series of warnings.
As the department wrote, the infrastructure and security challenges in Haiti right now have led to them urging U.S. citizens to find a way to leave the country either through the use of private or commercial transportation methods.
In the past few months, the conditions in Haiti have worsened, especially for those located in the capital of the Caribbean country, Port-au-Prince. Earlier this month, the U.S. embassy had to be briefly closed because of the gunfire and gang violence in the city.
In an incident in late July, an American nurse and her child had been kidnapped by a gang who held her for ransom in Haiti. The two were eventually returned to safety a couple of weeks after the kidnapping. In late July the State Department issued a warning against U.S. citizens traveling to the country because of the increased risk of kidnappings. Embassy non-emergency personnel were also told to leave Haiti.
In the first three months of 2023, there was a 28 percent increase in gang violence in the country. In 2022, the senior U.N. representative in Port-au-Prince revealed to the U.N. Security Council that the levels of gang violence had been higher than they had been in decades following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
Around 165,000 have fled their homes because of the violence, with many now being housed in temporary shelters.
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