90% of Port-au-Prince controlled by gangs as thousands forced into heaving displacement camps
A group of school children in their smart uniforms skip past us, overseen by their mums and dads.
In front of us, the highway is empty of all cars except for two armoured police vehicles slowly making their way up a hill.
The children and their parents are on “Airport Road”, which leads into the centre of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. The airport is a few miles away to the north.
The parents are leading the children to an intersection where they will turn right towards their homes.
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Police use heavily-armoured vehicles to patrol in Port-au-Prince
Everything beyond that intersection is gang territory, and nobody ventures past it but the police, who appear to be probing the gangs’ defences.
This part of the Airport Road, beyond the intersection and stretching for miles, is an area controlled by the gangster Jimmy Cherizier, known here and abroad as “Barbecue”.
The security forces are desperate to capture Barbecue, himself a former policeman, and to dismantle his gang.
A boy sleeps at the bottom of a staircase inside a displacement camp
As the families near the intersection, automatic gunfire bursts from the turret of one of the armoured police vehicles. Instantly the children and their parents run for safety, hugging a wall – they know what is about to happen.
Within seconds the police are being attacked with volleys of machine gun fire. We watch, holding our breaths, and thankfully all the children make it round the corner to the relative safety of a side street.
They live on the edge of what’s called the “red zone” where the gangs control the streets.
Security forces want to take it back.
Getting out of the cars would be suicide for police officers
The first armoured police vehicle makes it into Barbecue’s territory unscathed, but the second vehicle is hit.
One of its tyres is punctured, so they have no choice but to turn back.
The firing intensifies as the police vehicle makes its way down the hill, and we can hear the crack of bullets as the gangs target the police.
My team and I are travelling in two separate armoured 4x4s. The police are the targets, and we are filming their exchanges with gang members hidden up the hill and in side streets, firing from multiple positions.
As the police vehicle nears the intersection once again, it comes under sustained fire.
At this point the streets and the intersection are completely empty of people and traffic, anyone in the vicinity has taken cover.
A stray round passes uncomfortably close by our team still outside the vehicles, so we decide it’s time to go, and reverse as the armoured police vehicle loses its tyre, rolling forward on its rim.
Children caught in the crossfire in Port-au-Prince
Getting out would be suicidal for the police. The vehicle limps towards another crossroads to get away from the firing.
This, I’m told, is just an ordinary day in Port-au-Prince.
Nobody can fully agree on a number, but by most estimates, the gangs control around 90% of Port-au-Prince now. People don’t venture into their areas, and cars turn away from the boundaries to avoid being hit by sniper fire from inside or being caught in the crossfire.
Barbara Gashiwi and baby Jenna
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians have lost their homes, and many now find themselves in heaving makeshift displacement camps. They huddle for protection, but in reality there really isn’t much on offer.
In a narrow alleyway in a camp set up in the grounds of a church, I meet Barbara Gashiwi, a new mum. She gave birth to her daughter Jenna a month ago, beneath the plastic sheets where she still sits.
Barbara was forced out of her home by the gangs days before she was due to give birth.
Barbara Gashiwi tells Sky News she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to go home
“They pulled guns on us and told us to give up the house, after that we ran outside on to the street and took off,” she told me.
She says she doesn’t think she will ever go back to her home again. Very few of the 10,500 people living in this one displacement camp believe they will ever go home.
The gang warfare has left some Port-au-Prince streets completely derelict
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A year ago, we visited displaced Haitians living inside the government’s communication ministry.
At the time we walked in off the street, but this time we could barely move for the crowds – the forecourt is now a camp too, and the difference is stark.
The government has abandoned this and other ministries, moving higher up to safer ground, leaving whole communities on their own.
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March 2024: Thousands flee Haiti violence
The gangs’ lawless, and often murderous, activity means that the roughly 10% of Port-au-Prince still free is packed with people and traffic.
Just a few districts in Port-au-Prince are left, and they’re completed surrounded, leaving the people who live in this city squeezed into the only places that haven’t fallen.
The few free districts in the capital are packed with people and traffic
It’s hard to describe the claustrophobia and tension that pervades life here.
And with everything else happening in the world right now, the people of Haiti feel they’ve been abandoned, and are condemned to live their lives under the rule of the gun.
Stuart Ramsay reports from Haiti with camera operator Toby Nash, senior foreign producer Dominique Van Heerden, and producers Brunelie Joseph and David Montgomery.
A report into the deadly Lisbon Gloria funicular crash has said the cable linking the two carriages snapped.
The carriages of the city’s iconic Gloria funicular had travelled no more than six metres when they “suddenly lost the balancing force of the connecting cable”.
The vehicle’s brake‑guard immediately “activated the pneumatic brake as well as the manual brake”, the Office for the Prevention and Investigation of Aircraft Accidents and Railway Accidents said.
Flowers for the victims in Lisbon. Pic: AP
Pic: AP
But the measures “had no effect in reducing the vehicle’s speed”, as it accelerated and crashed at around 60kmh (37mph), and the disaster unfolded in less than 50 seconds.
Questions have been asked about the maintenance of the equipment, but the report said that, based on the evidence seen so far, it was up to date.
A scheduled visual inspection had been carried out on the morning of the accident, but the area where the cable broke “is not visible without dismantling.”
The Gloria funicular is a national monument that dates from 1914 and is very popular with tourists visiting the Portuguese capital.
The Gloria funicular connects Lisbon’s Restauradores Square to the Bairro Alto viewpoint
It operates between Restauradores Square in downtown Lisbon and the Bairro Alto neighbourhood.
The journey is just 276m (905ft) and takes just over a minute, but it operates up a steep hill, with two carriages travelling in opposite directions.
How the disaster unfolded
At around 6pm on Wednesday, Cabin No.2, at the bottom of the funicular, “jerked backward sharply”, the report said.
“After moving roughly 10 metres, its movement stopped as it partially left the tracks and its trolley became buried at the lower end of the cable channel.”
Cabin No.1, at the top, “continued descending and accelerated” before derailing and smashing “sideways into the wall of a building on the left side, destroying the wooden box [from which the carriage is constructed]”.
It crashed into a cast‑iron streetlamp and a support pole, causing “significant damage” before hitting “the corner of another building”.
Cable failed at top
Analysis of the wreckage showed the cable connecting the cabins failed where it was attached inside the upper trolley of cabin No.1 at the top.
The cable’s specified useful life is 600 days and at the time of the accident, it had been used for 337 days, leaving another 263 days before needing to be replaced.
The operating company regards this life expectancy as having “a significant safety margin”.
The exact number of people aboard each cabin when it crashed has not been confirmed.
Britons killed in disaster
Kayleigh Smith, 36, and William Nelson, 44, died alongside 14 others in Wednesday’s incident, including another British victim who has not yet been named.
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Five Portuguese citizens died when the packed carriage plummeted out of control – four of them workers at a charity on the hill – but most victims were foreigners.
Any remaining residents in Gaza’s largest city should leave for a designated area in the south, Israel’s military has warned.
Israeli forces are carrying out an offensive on suburbs of Gaza City, in the territory’s north, as part of plans to capture it – raising concern over an already-devastating humanitarian crisis.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced pressure to stop the attack and allow more aid in, the military has announced a new humanitarian zone in the south.
Spokesperson Avichay Adraee said Gaza City residents should head to a designated coastal area of Khan Younis.
There, he said they would be able to receive food, medical care and shelter.
On Thursday, Israel said it has control of around 40% of Gaza City and 75% of the entire territory of Gaza.
Many of the city’s residents had already been displaced earlier in the war, only to return later. Some of them have said they will refuse to move again.
That’s despite the military claiming it is within a few kilometres of the city centre, coming after weeks of heavy strikes.
But the war in Gaza has left Israel increasingly isolated in the diplomatic sphere, with some of its closest allies condemning the campaign that’s devastated the territory.
Just two weeks ago, a famine was declared in Gaza City and surrounding areas by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity.
A resident runs with his belongings in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
There is also concern within Israel, where calls have grown to stop the war and secure the release of the remaining 48 hostages.
Israel believes 20 of those hostages are still alive.
Even as relatives of those hostages lead protests, Mr Netanyahu continues to push for an all-or-nothing deal to release all hostages and defeat Hamas.
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On Friday, Donald Trump said Washington is in “very deep” negotiations with Hamas to release the captives.
“We said let them all out, right now let them all out. And much better things will happen for them but if you don’t let them all out, it’s going to be a tough situation, it’s going to be nasty,” he added.
Hamas is “asking for some things that are fine”, he said, without elaborating.
A man was heard screaming in the water moments before he died after a shark attack in Sydney, witnesses have said.
Emergency services responded to reports that a man in his 50s had suffered critical injuries at Long Reef Beach shortly after 10am (1am in the UK) on Saturday.
The man, whose identity has yet to be confirmed, was brought to shore but died at the scene, authorities have said.
Two sections of a surfboard have been recovered and taken for examination, and beaches near the area are closed as drones search for the animal.
Police are liaising with wildlife experts to determine the species of shark involved.
Pic: Sky News Australia
Surfer screamed ‘don’t bite me’
Speaking to Sky News Australia, witness Mark Morgenthal said he saw the attack and that the shark was one of the biggest he had ever seen.
“There was a guy screaming, ‘I don’t want to get bitten, I don’t want to get bitten, don’t bite me,’ and I saw the dorsal fin of the shark come up, and it was huge,” Mr Morgenthal said.
“Then I saw the tail fin come up and start kicking, and the distance between the dorsal fin and the tail fin looked to be about four metres, so it actually looked like a six-metre shark.”
Mark Morgenthal said it ‘looked like a six metre shark’ in the attack. Pic: Sky News Australia
Victim was a father and experienced surfer
New South Wales Police Superintendent John Duncan said at a press conference that the victim was 57 years old, calling the incident a “terrible tragedy”.
“The gentleman had gone out about 9.30 this morning with some of his friends, about five or six of his mates,” he added. “He’s an experienced surfer that we understand.
“Unfortunately, it would appear that a large, what we believe to be a shark, has attacked him. And as a result of that, he lost a number of limbs.
“His colleagues managed to make it back to the beach safely, and a short time later, his body was found floating in the surf, and a couple of other people went out and recovered it.”
Mr Duncan added that officers “understand he leaves behind a wife and a young daughter… and obviously tomorrow being Father’s Day is particularly critical and particularly tragic”.
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Local surfer and eyewitness Bill Sakula also told reporters at the beach: “It’s going to send shockwaves through the community.
“Everyone is going to be a little bit nervous for a while.”
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Surf Life Saving NSW has deployed a drone to search for further shark activity.
Its chief executive Steve Pearce said: “Our deepest condolences go to the family of the man involved in this terrible tragedy.”
Shark attacks are very rare, with this incident widely thought to be the first in New South Wales this year.
The last time a person in Sydney was killed in a shark attack was in February 2022 – the city’s first fatal shark attack since 1963.
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