By Steven Aristil and Sarah Morland
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -The United States said on Wednesday it was calling on Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry to expedite a political transition as armed gangs seek his ouster amid a collapse in security and a humanitarian crisis in the Caribbean nation.
Henry, Haiti's unelected interim leader, has been in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico since Tuesday, apparently unable or unwilling to return to his strife-torn country after traveling to Kenya to rally security backing.
A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. was not pushing for Henry to resign, but the U.S. wanted him to "expedite" a transition of political power.
The United States also said it is not helping Henry return home.
"We are not providing any assistance to help the prime minister return to Haiti," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said. Haitian gangs have warned that if Henry does not resign and countries continue to back him, that it could lead to civil war.
The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, said that as late as Tuesday the U.S. had been seeking to have Henry make an "indefinite stopover" on its territory, a request it denied, prompting Henry's plane, which had already departed from New Jersey, to land in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico.
Henry had traveled abroad to secure Kenya's proposed leadership of a long-delayed U.N.-ratified security mission he first requested in 2022 to help fight the increasingly powerful gangs, but countries have been slow to volunteer support.
There is no set deployment date and questions remain on who will staff it and how it will operate. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said on Wednesday that Washington hoped "that action will take place quickly."
Jimmy Cherizier, alias Barbeque, who leads a broad alliance of criminal gangs that have been fueling a dire humanitarian crisis in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, has signaled the gangs could fight the proposed mission as a united front and that the city's international airport is no longer secure.
Local rights group RNDDH said that at least nine police stations had been torched while 21 public buildings or shops had been looted, and over 4,600 prisoners escaped in the past week.
"If Ariel Henry doesn't step down, if the international community continues to support Ariel Henry, they will lead us directly into a civil war that will end in genocide," Cherizier said at a press conference on Tuesday.
He added that a broad alliance of gangs known as Viv Ansanm (Living Together) were fighting to annex strategic areas to allow them to oust Henry "as quickly as possible," and that his international backers would be to blame for Haitians who die.
NO CONSENSUS
Henry, who has been in power but unelected since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, has postponed promised elections, saying security must first be established for a free and fair vote.
Leaders from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have been meeting with Haitian government officials and opposition figures from the private, civil and religious sectors "around the clock" for three days, CARICOM Chair Irfaan Ali, who is also the president of Guyana, said in a video statement.
Ali said they had not been able to reach "any form of consensus" between key Haitian players and said it was essential to establish one as countries prepare to deploy troops in Haiti.
"They're all aware of the price of failure," Ali said. "The fact that more people have died in Haiti in the early part of this year than in Ukraine must give everyone serious pause."
A small number of protesters were outside a Puerto Rican hotel believed to be hosting Henry on Wednesday, calling for his resignation and for an external body to help administer elections.
"We ask that this great murderer resign," said Leonard Prophil, 51, a Haitian who has lived in Puerto Rico for 18 years and said his niece had been a victim of kidnapping in Haiti. "I don't know why they allowed him in Puerto Rico."
A U.N. spokesperson on Wednesday reiterated calls for donations to the security force and aid campaigns, saying the main hospitals were overloaded with wounded civilians and there was an urgent need for supplies of blood.
'BEYOND UNTENABLE'
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called for the "urgent deployment, with no further delay" of the planned security force, saying there was no realistic alternative to protect lives: "This situation is beyond untenable for the people of Haiti."
According to the U.N., some 360,000 people are internally displaced while close to 1,200 have been killed and nearly 700 injured since the start of this year, with widespread reports of rape and torture, and access to basic supplies and services blocked.
"Each passing day brings new deprivations and horrors," the head of the U.N.'s children agency, Catherine Russell, said. "The Haitian population is caught in the crossfire."
An association of private hospitals in Haiti on Wednesday said that due to the conflict many hospitals had been victims of violent attacks and were facing severe shortages of medical essentials such as fuel and oxygen.
The Dominican Republic has upped security on its border with Haiti. Last year it deported tens of thousands of Haitian migrants and has said it will not allow Haitian refugee camps in its territory.
Responding to questions on refusing Henry's plane, Dominican authorities said while they planned to cooperate to help restore normalcy to Haiti, "it is imperative that any action taken does not compromise our national security."
Haitian news outlet Vant Bef reported that Guy Philippe, a former coup leader who was recently deported from the United States after serving a prison term on drug trafficking charges, was seeking to become leader.
He is backed by a rogue environmental brigade that has evolved into a paramilitary group known as BSAP. Local media reported the group is staffed with former soldiers who fought with Philippe in 2004 to oust ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The U.N. Security Council is holding a closed door meeting on Haiti on Wednesday.