Heavy gun­fire par­a­lyzed Haiti’s cap­i­tal Thurs­day, and at least four po­lice of­fi­cers were slain, as a pow­er­ful gang leader an­nounced that he would try to cap­ture the coun­try’s po­lice chief and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

The move came dur­ing the ab­sence of Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry, who is in Kenya try­ing to fi­nal­ize de­tails for the de­ploy­ment of a for­eign armed force to Haiti to help com­bat gangs.

Gun­men shot at Haiti’s main in­ter­na­tion­al air­port and oth­er tar­gets, in­clud­ing po­lice sta­tions, in a wave of vi­o­lence that caught many peo­ple by sur­prise. At least four po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing two women, were killed in an at­tack on a sta­tion near the com­mu­ni­ty of Canaan, ac­cord­ing to a po­lice union.

The vi­o­lence forced the air­port, busi­ness­es, gov­ern­ment agen­cies and schools to close as par­ents and young chil­dren fled through the streets in pan­ic. At least one air­line, Sun­rise Air­ways, sus­pend­ed all flights.

Jim­my Chérizier, known as “Bar­be­cue” and leader of the gang fed­er­a­tion G9 Fam­i­ly and Al­lies, was seen in a record­ed video an­nounc­ing that the aim was to tie up the po­lice chief and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and pre­vent Hen­ry from re­turn­ing to Haiti.

“With our guns and with the Hait­ian peo­ple, we will free the coun­try,” he said.

A spokesman for the prime min­is­ter’s of­fice could not be im­me­di­ate­ly reached for com­ment. The head of Haiti’s Na­tion­al Po­lice, Frantz El­bé, and po­lice spokesman Gar­ry Desrosiers did not re­turn mes­sages for com­ment.

Gun­fire still rang out Thurs­day evening and dozens of Haitians were seen car­ry­ing chil­dren and heavy bags stuffed with be­long­ings flee­ing their neigh­bor­hoods. They raised their hands as a peace of­fer­ing to po­ten­tial gangs while rush­ing through in­ter­sec­tions.

Ar­moured ve­hi­cles pa­trolled emp­ty streets in down­town Port-au-Prince while oth­ers re­mained sta­tioned near gang-con­trolled slums.

Res­i­dents in some neigh­bour­hoods, in­clud­ing Canape Vert and Turgeau, set up road­blocks to pre­vent gangs from en­ter­ing as men who were not wear­ing uni­forms stood by with ma­chine guns.

Pierre Alex Bouch­er, a math teacher who lives in down­town Port-au-Prince, said he heard heavy gun­fire be­fore dawn. Sev­er­al hours lat­er, as the gun­fire con­tin­ued, he stood on his roof and said he saw po­lice in an ar­moured car try­ing to fight gang mem­bers and then abrupt­ly leave.

The shoot­ing then wors­ened, and when he saw what he be­lieved were teenagers with ma­chine guns, he fled his home, feel­ing that his life was in dan­ger.

“The area is com­plete­ly in­vad­ed by gangs,” Bouch­er said of his neigh­bour­hood. “A lot of peo­ple couldn’t make it out, and some locked them­selves in­side their homes.”

He said he spoke with friends who saw peo­ple who had been shot to death.

“The coun­try has to re­volt against the gangs,” he said. “No one is safe.”

It was not clear if Chérizier, the gang leader, had the back­ing of oth­er ma­jor gangs that are es­ti­mat­ed to con­trol up to 80% of Haiti’s cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince.

Diego Da Rin, with the In­ter­na­tion­al Cri­sis Group, not­ed that Bar­be­cue in his speech re­ferred to a coali­tion called Viv Ansanm, which means “liv­ing to­geth­er” in Hait­ian Cre­ole. The coali­tion was cre­at­ed last year as part of a peace pact be­tween Bar­be­cue’s fed­er­a­tion and an­oth­er pow­er­ful gang called G-Pep and had as a main goal to bring down Hen­ry’s ad­min­is­tra­tion.

How­ev­er, the coali­tion crum­bled just days af­ter it was an­nounced, and Da Rin said it re­mains to be seen whether Bar­be­cue tru­ly has the sup­port of oth­er gang lead­ers.

“I don’t know how much cred­i­bil­i­ty to give Bar­be­cue right now,” Da Rin said. “Ri­val­ries be­tween gangs are so strong and al­liances ever-shift­ing that it’s com­pli­cat­ed they could act in a con­cert­ed man­ner for a long time with­out much trou­ble.”

How­ev­er, he not­ed that gun­men launched co­or­di­nat­ed at­tacks in Port-au-Prince on Thurs­day. In ad­di­tion to the at­tack on the main in­ter­na­tion­al air­port, gun­men al­so set fire to a po­lice sta­tion in down­town Port-au-Prince.

The at­tacks came a day af­ter Hen­ry met in Guyana with Caribbean lead­ers, who said he pledged to hold long-await­ed gen­er­al elec­tions by mid-2025. It is the third time he has an­nounced such a dead­line, with pre­vi­ous promis­es made in 2022 and 2023. There are cur­rent­ly no elect­ed of­fi­cials in Haiti, with Hen­ry was sworn in as prime min­is­ter with the back­ing of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty short­ly af­ter the Ju­ly 2021 as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse.

Hen­ry trav­elled from Guyana to Kenya in hopes of mov­ing for­ward on the de­ploy­ment of Kenyan po­lice of­fi­cers to Haiti. A court in the East African na­tion ruled last month that the pro­posed de­ploy­ment was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, but Hen­ry and Kenyan of­fi­cials have been work­ing on a deal that would al­low forces to ar­rive in Haiti soon.

“There has al­ways been the dan­ger that as dis­cus­sions progress and the goal of the mis­sion gets clos­er the gangs will try to flex their mus­cles and dis­cour­age the troops,” Da Rin said.

The gov­ern­ment of Haiti said in a state­ment that Hen­ry ar­rived in Kenya on Thurs­day. They did not say when he would re­turn to Haiti.

Co­to re­port­ed from San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)