Six police officers killed by gangs in Haiti

Six police officers were killed in northern Haiti when gang members attacked a police station, authorities said, in a new act of violence that sparked protests on Thursday (January 26th) in Port-au -Prince.

Civilians and police, exasperated, marched through the streets of the capital, erected barricades, tried to invest the offices of the contested Prime Minister Ariel Henry and invaded the runway of Toussaint Louverture International Airport, noted a correspondent of the AFP.

The demonstrators, however, failed to reach the diplomatic lounge where the head of government was, returning from a summit abroad.

Air traffic was nevertheless disrupted, while schools closed their doors in Port-au-Prince.

Thursday,

attacked three times a police sub-station in Liancourt, a locality in the north of the Caribbean country, and

, armed men attacking

,” police chief Jean Bruce Myrtil told local radio on Thursday morning.

Among the six police officers killed, four, injured earlier in the day, were

by gang members from the clinic where they were being treated

, added the police chief.

“On high alert”

The Director General of the National Police of Haiti, Frantz Elbé, has indicated that his forces are

The police had announced on their social networks the death of

.

Fourteen police officers have been killed by armed gangs since the beginning of the year, according to a count made by the National Union of Haitian Police Officers.

Trade unionist Lionel Lazzare called on officials to adopt measures to protect officers.

Gang violence and the humanitarian emergency have reached levels "not seen in decades" in Haiti, the UN was alarmed on Tuesday, insisting on the need to send an international force, request on the table of the Security Council for three months without result.