“We have removed all EU staff from Haiti,” said Peter Stano, spokesperson for the diplomatic division of the European Commission.
The European Union has evacuated all its personnel from Haiti, where the capital, Port-au-Prince, is facing a severe security crisis due to a spiral of violence unleashed by armed gangs clashing with the police.
“We have removed all EU staff from Haiti,” said Peter Stano, spokesperson for the diplomatic division of the European Commission, the executive arm of the bloc, on Monday.
The EU is “extremely concerned” about the events in Haiti in recent days, he added.
“In response to the dramatic deterioration of the security situation, we have decided to scale back our activities on the ground and relocate the EU delegation staff in Port-au-Prince to a safer location outside the country,” Stano said.
Essential personnel continue to work “but not from Haiti,” he stated.
“Of course, we are assessing the situation and will adapt the way we operate as the security situation unfolds,” Stano said.
CARICOM, an alliance of Caribbean nations, summoned envoys from the United States, France, Canada, and the United Nations to a meeting in Jamaica on Monday to discuss the violence and ways to provide assistance to Haiti.
The Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, claimed that he can fix the serious violence crisis in Haiti with the approval of local authorities and the UN: “We can fix it. But we will need a resolution from the UN Security Council, the consent of the host country, and all mission expenses covered,” he posted in English on his X account in response to a user’s message.
Later, the Salvadoran president, known for his “war against gangs,” which he claims transformed his country from one of the most dangerous in the world to the safest in Latin America, returned to the same social media platform to delve into Haiti’s issues.
Bukele reacted to a video allegedly showing a gang member in Haiti eating human remains, in undated images that could be several months old, while explicitly depicting the removal of a charred leg from a victim from a street fire.
“We saw similar images in El Salvador a few years ago. Gangs bathing with the skulls of their victims,” Bukele explained.
Faced with that situation, he added, “all the ‘experts’ said they couldn’t be defeated (the gangs) because they were an ‘intrinsic part’ of Salvadoran society.”
“They were wrong. We annihilated them. The same must be done in Haiti,” the president concluded.
