The coordinated gang offensive that began on February 29, 2024 brought Port-au-Prince to a virtual standstill within 48 hours, as criminal networks simultaneously attacked police stations, government buildings, and infrastructure across the capital while residents locked themselves inside their homes. Businesses closed, schools shuttered, markets emptied, and the streets of a city of several million people fell eerily quiet except for the sounds of sustained gunfire.
The scale of the offensive was unlike anything Port-au-Prince had experienced before. Previous episodes of gang violence had been intense but geographically concentrated. The February-March offensive was citywide, with coordinated attacks on targets across multiple neighborhoods simultaneously — a demonstration of organizational capacity that shocked even observers who had been tracking the gangs’ growth for years.
Residents who had lived through previous crises described the atmosphere as qualitatively different from anything before it. “It wasn’t done at night and the police was nowhere to be found,” one activist told NPR. “Gangs paraded throughout Port-au-Prince with their arms openly.” The brazenness of the display — criminal organizations operating in broad daylight, unchallenged, across the entire capital — marked a new phase in the collapse of state authority.
Humanitarian organizations suspended field operations as their staff could not safely move through the city. Medical facilities saw reduced capacity as health workers could not safely travel to their posts. The cascading effects of the standstill on an already fragile humanitarian situation were immediate and severe.