An armored police vehicle hulks nearby; the few police officers on watch cover their faces with balaclavas. This street looks nearly abandoned, as if in the wake of a disaster – an experience that people in Port-au-Prince know better than most. But leaving the city isn’t an option this time; the airport, under siege by gangs, has been forced to close.
Over a dozen suspected gang members in that instance were killed and burned outside the police station, according to the commander, who requested anonymity for his security. Refugees in their own city Just five minutes away by car, another community is trying desperately to hold together in even more trying conditions: a displacement camp – one of dozens of sites across the city where tens of thousands of city residents congregate, after being forced from their homes by violence and arson.