Haitians Flee Gangs on a Dangerous Mountain Trail

Now, it is one of the last ways to escape Port-au-Prince, the capital city where violent gangs have cut off other road and sea routes for fleeing Haitians. Each day, scores of Haitians carrying suitcases and mattresses take the daylong, sometimes dangerous journey along the rocky route to get to the country's southern coast, a haven from the urban warfare.

The rush to flee highlights the worsening security conditions in Haiti. Gang leaders have seized control over some 90% of the capital since toppling an interim government in March. A U.S.-funded, Kenya-led international police force that was deployed in June is struggling to fight back, leaving average citizens to fend for themselves.

"To live in Port-au-Prince right now is to live in hell, like an open-air prison," said Marie Yolene Gilles, a humanrights advocate in the city who described how friends and colleagues have had to take the remote route south. "We're closer to death than to life. People are willing to risk it all to get to the countryside."

The precarious situation underscores challenges that await the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, which has promised to strip Haitian migrants in the U.S. of protected status and carry out mass deportations. For Haitians, deportation would mean returning to a country where gunmen fight in the streets over lucrative trades in smuggling, extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom, security analysts said.

More than 200 people were killed in a Port-au-Prince slum in early December when a gang boss sent followers with machetes to hunt people he believed were practicing witchcraft, rights groups that documented the massacre said.

In recent days, two journalists and a police officer were fatally shot in Port-au-Prince by gangsters at a ceremony marking the reopening of the capital's general hospital. That attack took place days after a gang set fire to an important local trauma center.

The gang violence has displaced 700,000 people, about a quarter of the capital's population, according to the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency. Almost 75% of them have fled to provinces in Haiti's south, many taking the perilous route south by foot.

Gangs have largely sealed off exits from Port-au-Prince. Armed children recruited from slums have choked off major roads, halting the distribution of food, fuel and potable water. Haitians trying to leave the city on boats through the Bay of Port-au-Prince have been pushed back by gunfire from gang members who dominate the waterfront, aid workers said.

Even for those who can afford to fly, there are few exit options. The Federal Aviation Administration has banned U.S. airlines from flying to the capital's Toussaint Louverture International Airport until March, after three commercial aircraft were recently hit with bullets. The U.S. regulatory agency is still allowing flights to Haiti's second city, Cap-Haïtien, on the northern coast. Foreign embassies and aid organizations have been evacuating nonessential personnel on small jets and helicopters to cities outside the capital.

For average Haitians, the footpath to the south is among the only ways to escape. "You used to see just five or six people on this path, but it's become like a constant stream," said Bill O'Neill, the U.N.'s top human-rights expert on Haiti. "Now they're not doing it for business or pleasure.

Now it's about getting out and saving their lives." The starting point for many Haitians fleeing along the route is in Pétion-Ville, a sprawling neighborhood in the hills of Port-au-Prince where high-end mansions are next to hillside shanties. It is one of the few areas in the capital where police, alongside civilian vigilante groups, have been able to thwart gang control.

A road from there leads to Kenscoff, a hillside village and farming hub outside the city where people can pick up the footpath for the roughly 30mile journey to the southern coast. Many of those fleeing hire motorbikes to help them cover ground, though that can cost more than a hundred dollars, or about a month's salary.

But after passing the pine forest, the path's craters, boulders and steep cliffs make carrying passengers increasingly perilous.

Anne, a worker from a humanitarian organization, recounted having to walk much of the way on her trek to reconnect with family in the beach town of Jacmel. Her trip took more than 12 hours because she said the motorcycle she hired kept getting stuck and the path is routinely left muddied and impassable by downpours.

"You hurt everywhere," said Anne. "My mother told me 'Don't make the trip.' But I had already made up my mind."

Video circulated in recent months on Haitian social media and chat apps showed crowds moving along the path outside Kenscoff and motorbikes struggling to navigate the route next to a cliff where one slip could be deadly. Local authorities have been using excavators and other construction equipment to widen the trail as the number of travelers swells.

The goal for most people is to get to cities that have been largely spared the gang siege, said Gilles, the rights advocate. She said she had fond memories of taking the trail as a child with her family but has watched it become a symbol of Haiti's humanitarian catastrophe.

"This is the people's last recourse," said Gilles. "It's either this path or you give yourself over to the gangs."

A mechanic in Port-auPrince said he was gathering his belongings to embark on the journey with his son this week. But he said he had to delay as he waited for friends overseas to send him money to pay the motorcycle taxis.

O'Neill, the U.N. expert, said he was concerned about gangs that have been trying to set up base near the mouth of the trail. In recent months, gangsters have also carried out raids in Pétion-Ville. Without more international aid for Haiti's beleaguered security forces, security analysts say they fear the dirt trail could also fall. "The gangs are working their way up the hill," said O'Neill. "If they do, they will have the city totally encircled."