Speaker tells council gang attacks and airport closure left Port-au-Prince isolated and worsened humanitarian crisis

Maria Isabel Salvador (role not specified) told the council that armed gangs attacked commercial aircraft near Port-au-Prince’s international airport on Nov. 11, forcing the airport’s closure and suspension of flights and leaving the capital increasingly isolated.

“She has the floor” — Salvador opened by saying she was “hopeful for the signs of progress in the political front despite serious setbacks in the security way.” She told members that at least three aircraft were struck and that one flight attendant was injured in a reported attack.

The speech said the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s ban on U.S.-registered aircraft increased the capital’s isolation and that at least one major airline has said it will not return to Haiti for the foreseeable future. Salvador reported that, in the weeks following, coordinated gang attacks across the capital provoked violent responses from armed self-defense groups and contributed to what she described as a surge in killings and displacement.

Salvador gave consolidated casualty and displacement figures: at least 220 deaths and nearly 41,000 people displaced from the November wave of violence; separate mass killings in what the transcript names as…