PORT-AU-PRINCE — Venite Bernard's feet are bloodied and torn because, she said, she had no time to grab her sandals when she fled her shack with her youngest children as gangsters roamed the Haitian capital's most notorious slum, shooting people in their homes. Now the 47-year-old Bernard and her family are camped in the courtyard of the town hall of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, along with more than 200 others, fleeing an outbreak of violence that is part of what civic leaders say is the country's worst lawlessness in more than a decade. "Bandits entered the homes of some people and beat them, and they were shooting," Bernard said through her tears, lying on a rug in the shade of a tree. "Everyone was running so I left as quickly as I could with the children." United Nations peacekeeping troops withdrew from Haiti in 2017 after 15 years, saying they had helped to re-establish law and order in the poorest country in the Americas, where nearly 60 percent of the population survives on less than $2.40 a day.

Source: International New York Times December 10, 2019 23:03 UTC