On Nov. 11, a Spirit Airlines plane — while landing at Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture Airport in Port-au-Prince — was fired upon leaving at least one crew member wounded.
According to reporting from the Miami Herald, a flight attendant was grazed by a bullet following what appeared to be indiscriminate shooting.
Video footage, obtained by local media outlet, Libre Haiti, showed that after landing, multiple bullet holes could be seen in the planes overhead bins.
The flight, which departed Fort Lauderdale, Fla, heading to Haiti had to be diverted to an airport in the Dominican Republic, while all other commercial flights were grounded at the airport in Haiti.
This incident comes just two weeks after Spirit Airlines temporarily suspended services after Haitian gang members opened fire on, and struck, a United Nations helicopter while it was in flight.
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Haiti’s Prime Minister ousted
Also on Monday, Haitian Prime Minister, Garry Conille, was ousted via executive order by the country’s ruling council less than six months after he took office.
The order was signed by eight of the council’s nine members, and appointed businessman and former Senate candidate, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, as Conille’s successor.
Once a United Nations official, Conille, was recruited to lead Haiti while it grappled with ongoing gang violence. He was expected to usher in the country’s first presidential elections since 2016.
In a letter obtained by Reuters, Conille said his ousting was illegal and that it raises “serious concerns” about the country’s future.
“Haiti currently has neither a president nor parliament and, according to its constitution, only the latter can sack a sitting prime minister,” the BBC reported.
“This resolution, taken outside any legal and constitutional framework, raises serious concerns about its legitimacy,” Conille’s letter read.
Conille rose to power following the ousting of his predecessor, Ariel Henry, who was forced out by a network of gangs that had seized parts of the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
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Violence and hunger rampant in Haiti
According to the United Nations (UN), since January this year, more than 3,600 Haitians have been killed, and more than 500,000 have been forced from their homes due to ongoing gang violence.
Haiti, considered to be one of the poorest countries in the world, is also grappling with an epidemic of hunger.
UN data shows that at least two million Haitians are facing emergency levels of hunger, and that half the country’s population “do not have enough to eat.”
A prominent gang leader, Jimmy Chérizier, also known as Barbecue, says he would end the violence if his gang was allowed to be involved in talks to establish a new government.
Haiti hasn’t had a presidential election for over eight years, when Jovenel Moïse of the Tèt Kale party was elected.
Moïse was assassinated in July 2021, and since then the post of president has remained vacant.
Gangs have seized on the circumstances to spread violence throughout the country, leaving large swaths of the nation lawless.
