“You have gangs basically doing whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want with complete impunity because the police force is not capable of bringing them under control.” “Haiti is now in complete chaos,” said Alex Dupuy, a Haiti-born sociologist at Wesleyan University. Banks and grocery stores also are struggling to stay open because of dwindling fuel supplies - and exorbitant prices - that make it nearly impossible for many workers to commute.Ī gallon of gasoline costs $30 on the black market in Port-au-Prince and more than $40 in rural areas, Desperate people are walking for miles to get food and water because public transportation is extremely limited. The lack of fuel recently forced hospitals to cut back critical services and prompted water delivery companies to shut down. Many gas stations are closed, and others are quickly running out of supplies. 12, cutting off about 10 million gallons of diesel and gasoline and more than 800,000 gallons of kerosene stored on site. The fuel depot blocked by gangs has been inoperable since Sept. “If they don’t understand us, we’re going to make them understand,” said Pierre Killick Cemelus, who sweated as he struggled to keep pace with thousands of other protesters marching during a recent demonstration. Political instability has simmered ever since last year's still-unsolved assassination of Haiti's president inflation soaring around 30% has only aggravated the situation. But the magnitude of the current paralysis and despair is unprecedented. Life in Haiti is always extremely difficult, if not downright dysfunctional. The president of neighboring Dominican Republic described the situation as a “low-intensity civil war.”