Attacks on Haiti’s cultural institutions are denounced by UNESCO, which states that “these acts of vandalism, looting, and arson against the country’s educational institutions have devastating consequences for the future of Haitian society.”
The director of Haiti’s National Library informed the AFP news agency that armed gangs in control of the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, had robbed the library. UNESCO has denounced many “devastating” attacks on the city’s artistic and educational establishments.
The history of Haiti, the second-oldest nation in the Western Hemisphere, is under peril, according to library director Dangelo Neard’s statement on Wednesday.
“There’s a threat to our documentary collections. We run the risk of having our priceless, historically significant records destroyed by bandits or burned beyond 200 years old,” he stated.
“I was informed that the furniture in the institution is being taken by the thugs. Additionally, they looted the building’s generator.”
In the absence of a functioning government and because to ongoing delays in the establishment of a promised transitional authority, armed groups dominate large portions of the countryside and much of Port-au-Prince.
Following a few days of relative quiet, attacks in a number of Port-au-Prince neighborhoods resumed on Monday.
The National School of Arts and the Ecole Normale Superieure were attacked last week, and this strike targets the National Library as well.
UNESCO, the UN agency for education, science, and culture, condemned damage at the National School of Arts and stated that it “promotes the development of artists and the influence of Haitian art throughout the world.”
Meanwhile, the oldest teacher training facility in the nation and “one of the pillars” of the educational system is the Ecole Normale Superieure, which UNESCO reported was the scene of an arson.
“These acts of vandalism, looting and arson against the country’s educational institutions have devastating consequences for the future of Haitian society,” stated UNESCO.
The UN’s humanitarian office reported on Wednesday that two medical facilities and ten pharmacies were robbed last week as well, and that the burden on the remaining hospitals is growing.
Tuesday’s statement from the nation’s beleaguered national police stated that they were “determined and committed to restoring order and peace.”
A new prime minister is on the way?
Since February, when its formidable gangs banded together to attack police stations, prisons, the airport, and the seaport, Haiti has been engulfed in a wave of bloodshed.
They want to remove Ariel Henry, the prime minister at the time, who has held the position since Jovenel Moise’s assassination in 2021. Since 2016, there hasn’t been a sitting parliament in the nation.
In addition, the nation has endured decades of gang violence, natural disasters, poverty, and political unrest; months of escalating unrest preceded the confrontations in February and were sparked by Moise’s murder.
Henry, who was unpopular and unelected, declared on March 11 that he would resign as part of a plan that was mediated internationally to create room for a transitional council.
However, despite several weeks having passed, the council has not yet been formally established and put into place due to disagreements between political parties and other interested parties about who should be named prime minister and concerns about the council’s legality in general.
Leslie Voltaire, a council member, told AFP, “We want to do a lot of things in two weeks, and we spent two and a half years with Ariel Henry who did nothing.”
He also accused regional organization CARICOM of hurrying the council’s establishment, despite his assurances that it would be constituted by Thursday and choose a prime minister within a week.
SOURCE: TRTWORLD
