Haitian gang boss Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier over the weekend threatened a “violent reprisal” after police raided his stronghold in Port-au-Prince’s Delmas neighborhood, the newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported on Sunday.
Cherizier, a former Haitian police officer who now leads a coalition of violent armed gangs known as Viv Ansanm (“Live Together” in Haitian Creole), issued the threats in a video that began circulating on social media hours after the security operation in Delmas.
The criminal kingpin accused Haitian police of using drones carrying explosives to try and kill him. “I’m going to tell you how the battle is going to end,” he proclaimed in the roughly two-minute-long video.
“I have friends and brothers all over the world. I have money. Drones are sold everywhere. I can get them, too,” Cherizier claimed.
The gang leader intimated that the alleged attempts on his life would warrant his own “use [of] explosive drones to hit anyone in the country.” He further asserted that “anyone can be killed in this country” following the assassination of former Haitian President Jovenel Moise in 2021. Throughout 2024, Cherizier called for a “bloody revolution” and repeatedly demanded the ouster of all Haitian politicians as the nation grew increasingly ruled by violent thugs.
Líder pandillero de Haití Barbicue dice que esta vivo… UFF
Posted by Wellington De Jesus Martinez on Sunday, March 2, 2025
A joint task force comprised of agents from Haiti’s Special Unit of the Prime Minister’s Office (USPM) and the General Security Unit of the National Palace (USGPN) conducted a “large-scale operation” in lower Delmas, a shantytown that Cherizier has seized as his bastion. Several gang members died during the mission, according to Haitian government authorities cited by the BBC. The British broadcaster further relayed local reports describing security personnel as using drones affixed with explosives.
Haitian Interim Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé confirmed the security operation on social media, stating that “several bandits were arrested.”
The weekend security operation in Delmas against Cherizier’s stronghold came after Haitian gangs launched a multi-day wave of terror across the slum last week, “killing at least 15 people including a meat vendor who was burned alive in front of his child,” the Miami Herald reported.
A displaced resident named Jean Phillippe Marcel alleged that gang members were “throwing live babies into the flames,” according to the newspaper. “In addition to the meat vendor, Marcel said a neighbor was also burned alive by gang members, along with her child.”
The head of Haiti’s presidential transition council, Leslie Voltaire, expressed satisfaction with the results of the weekend security operation in Delmas, claiming that the joint task force had moved on to the “offensive.”
“The task force gathers all the units of the Haitian National Police, of the national palace, and those of the Primature. Before these units defended fixed points. Now they move on to the attack,” Voltaire told the Port-au-Prince-based newspaper Le Nouvelliste on Sunday.
Also speaking to Le Nouvelliste, Fils-Aimé said similar operations will allow “displaced people to return home.” The crime crackdown aims to put the gangs on the defensive while giving the population a “respite” from their violence, according to the interim prime minister. He added that the initiative could potentially allow Haiti to hold democratic elections.
“My only way out is to re-establish security, which is a sine qua non [necessary condition] for the organization of elections. Security will necessarily require further attacks like those in lower Delmas today,” Fils-Aimé said. “As far as the population is concerned, I guarantee that it is these attacks that will destabilize the gangs and enable displaced people to return to their neighborhoods.”
At least 5,601 people were killed across Haiti in 2024 due to gang violence, the United Nations (U.N.) reported. This figure exceeds the total number of U.N.-documented killings in the country in 2023 by 1,000. The organization also tallied 2,212 people as injured and 1,494 people as kidnapped in Haiti throughout 2024.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
