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When it comes, the gang violence is lethal and nobody in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince knows when or where it will flare up next.

Thousands have been forced to leave their homes and those capable of leaving the city do so on buses and in cars, heading north away from the fighting.

But tens of thousands simply can’t get away.

They’re now living rough or in buildings that they have taken over.

A huge argument erupts outside the locked gates of Haiti’s communications ministry building.

Hundreds of families have moved in, and a group of their male family members strictly control who can and who cannot enter.

The gates are locked to keep the gangs outside, and getting in takes negotiation with these men.

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They all have families camping in the ministry compound.

They tell us there are 1,956 people here.

Injured men in the communications ministry building
Image:
Injured men in the communications ministry building

Once inside we are faced with a rowdy queue of people waiting for a handout of meagre supplies of donated food.

There is hardly anything, but they are short of everything, so they’ll take whatever they can get.

The communications ministry building has become a sanctuary for people who have been forced out of their homes in the violence that is sweeping Port-au-Prince.

Displaced families in the communications ministry building
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Displaced families in the communications ministry building

Displaced families in the communications ministry building
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Nearly 2,000 people are in the communications ministry building

This is the only place they could find to give them some protection.

That they are in a government building abandoned by the authorities pretty much sums up the chaos here in Port-au-Prince.

Inside families with young children sleep anywhere they can find a space, while the elderly and sick are gathered in a courtyard in an area designated especially for them.

All they can do is sit and wait and hope that this gang uprising comes to an end.

In a room next to the courtyard people caught in the crossfire sit on the floors. Some have been shot multiple times.

They’re receiving no medical attention – any medicine they had has long since run out.

There is nowhere for them to go.

Read more:
What happened to Haiti?
Prominent Haitian gang leader shot dead by police
Bodies seen in streets as Haitian gangs attack upmarket areas
The moment I met Haitian gang boss known as Barbecue

Hundreds of people are sheltering in the communications ministry building during the violence
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Hundreds of people are sheltering in the communications ministry building during the violence

Bienvil Jovenè is one of the injured. He says he was caught up in a completely random attack.

“I don’t know where the bullet came from, I just got shot, I lost everything, and I can’t get home.”

His bullet wounds have not been treated properly, and he says he has no idea what to do.

Mr Jovenè can’t go home, he can’t go to hospital, and there is nobody to help.

Whole families are stuck in this government building alongside the wounded and the elderly.

There are children everywhere, some play under the desks that government ministers once sat at.

Lanié Eva has been forced to live here temporarily with her four children. I asked if we could meet her children as well, and she told me they’re on the street begging – she doesn’t know what else to do. They have to eat somehow.

This is desperate stuff.

Lanié Eva has been displaced with her children
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Lanié Eva has been displaced with her children

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“I have no choice,” she said. “I have to sleep here because I can’t sleep on the street it’s not safe, there’s no government helping us, we need someone to help us out, aside from God there is nobody to help us, and we are in misery here.”

On the streets of Port-au-Prince there is a tension, a feeling that anything could happen at any point. We drive towards the presidential palace, the scene of some of the fiercest battles between the gangs and the security forces.

It is eerily quiet, there are barricades everywhere, and a lone police vehicle guards the entrance. The nearby ministry of justice building is empty.

Barricades are seen all over the capital
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Barricades are seen all over the capital

We don’t spend long in the area because we are told we are most likely being watched by the gangs who have crept onto these streets.

Across Port-au-Prince the signs of violence like burnt out cars and damaged roads are everywhere.

We drive to the edge of a major road that is all but deserted.

A road leading to a Barbecue's territory
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A road leading to a Barbecue’s territory

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From 12 March: Haitian gang leader Barbecue issues warning

The road, with a lone stationary yellow school bus on it, signals the start of Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier’s gangland territory.

Nobody dares drive through it.

It’s in many ways a symbol of the gang’s power, and the problems Haiti faces.

The gang coalition led by Barbecue is threatening to increase its violence if Haiti’s politicians try to take back control.

It means that this always troubled country is descending into even more chaos.

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.

Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.

After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.

Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.

The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.

Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.

“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.

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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.

“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”

Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.

This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.

Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.

Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.

Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.

He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”

“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.

Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.

State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.

Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
Image:
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike

Map of Lebanon and Israel

The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.

At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.

The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).

A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.

The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.

Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.

Read more:
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‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike

US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.

Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.

It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia's 'unstoppable' missile - as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.

In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.

“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

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Putin’s warning to the West

Russia war latest: Long-awaited US air defences arrive in Ukraine

He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”

Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.

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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.

Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”

Read more from Sky News:
What are storm shadow missiles?
How bionic limps are helping Ukrainian troops

Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.

NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.

EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’

Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.

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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?

Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.

At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.

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