For a while, little was heard about the attacks by armed gangs in Port-au-Prince, but from October 16 the shootings are back in the news, beginning with an assault on Maglorire Ambroise Street, where they set fire to houses and made the neighbors flee their homes.

As locals were pinning their hopes on respect for a national anniversary – the 218th anniversary of the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, on February 17 -, gunmen broke in the coomemoration carrying automatic weapons, firing so heavily that members of the Presidential Transitional Council and senior state officials had to leave the site in a hurry, after laying a wreath at the Haitian National Pantheon Museum.

On the same day, the Bel-Air gang launched an attack on the Solino and Delmas 24 neighbourhoods, reported the daily Le Nouvelliste.

Taking advantage of the absence of police officers regularly stationed in the area, they launched an onslaught on residents.

Several houses were set on fire on Anglade Street. A girl watching television was hit in the head by a stray bullet.

The commune of Tabarre also became the target of gang attacks with automatic machine guns, creating panic in the area and making residents flee their homes to save their lives.

On October 18, the swearing-in ceremony for members of the Provisional Electoral Council had to be forcibly moved from the Court of Cassation to the School of the Magistracy, given the impeding risk for participants in that area of Port-au-Prince.

The Le Facteur Haiti daily reported that during the anti-gang clashes two members of the Haitian Armed Forces were wounded by bullets and were taken to the hospital.