The Haitian authorities have expanded a state of emergency to the whole country as the government battles violent gangs that have taken control of large parts of the capital - and are attempting to move into other regions. We hear what life is like for people living through the insecurity. Also on the programme: President Macron of France has announced former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as his choice for Prime Minister, but will a divided parliament support him?; and can a ‘green prescription’ to get outside in nature be as effective as therapy? (Photo: A Kenyan police officer leaves a building during a joint operation with Haitian police, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Credit: REUTERS/Jean Feguens Regala)
Hello, and welcome to NewsHour.
Live from the BBC World Service in London, I'm Rebecca Kesby.
The us secretary of State Antony Blinken, is due in the caribbean nation of Haiti today amid very high security when he meets local leaders.
Haiti has been gripped by warlike gang violence for the past couple of years, eventually resulting in the collapse of the previous government earlier this year.
Now a transitional council is in charge, but I'm putting that phrase in quotation marks because no one really seems to have control of the situation.
There's a state of emergency in place at the moment, but it seems not exactly enforced.
And while rival gangs are fighting it out, civilians are trapped in the middle.
Half a million Haitians have been displaced by the violence, and some 5 million, that's half the population, struggle to get enough to eat.
More on Mister Blinkens visit and what he hopes to bring to the situation in a moment.
First, independent journalist Harold Isaac is in the capital, Port au Prince, and he gave me a picture of life for ordinary people there.
For people living in gang control areas, it's a daily confrontation, honestly find their ways to get by.
Despite it all, the gangs have been responsible of atrocities, rape, setting homes on fires, killings, you name it, and essentially growing into virtually a proto state.
Can you just expand on that a little bit for us?
We're trying to sort of build a picture because it is very specific to Haiti, what's been going on.
And I think sometimes people imagine, you know, their local gangs in their cities.
But this is, like you say, the grip that these gangs have and the punishments they've been meeting out on rival gangs over the last 20 years.
Really, you went from having gangs that had what we called creole weapons, which was self made weapons, to now gangs carrying around AR 15s, Kalashnikovs, you know, and very high powered rifles, and waging terror, for the most part, to vulnerable populations, especially in popular neighborhoods of the metropolitan area of Port au Prince.
Now, what has happened since the arrival of the canyon led multinational security support mission is that many of these gangs have now started to spread around the country in anticipation of a potential showdown with said mission.
And we've got this state of emergency across the country.
Now, is that being enforced and how?