PORT-AU-PRINCE — The Haitian National Police (PNH) organized a week of civic actions to mark its 27th anniversary on June 12. With the aim of building cooperative relations with the public, the commemoration theme is: “Hand in hand, PNH and the people walk toward safety.”
“We don’t think about the amount of lives one drop of blood can save, it’s an act of love,” Jean Claude Laguerre, divisional inspector of the Southeastern Department, said while donating blood at Saint Michel hospital in Jacmel in a PNH video on June 8. “Our duty is to protect and serve, we also want to save lives, a drop of blood counts.”
In a country rife with rampant violence, bandits have shot dead 25 police officers between January and June 2022, Lionel Lazare, a police union official, said. Police officers have also complained recently about poor working conditions and lack of equipment.
Still, police have organized street cleaning operations, blood donation, open house activities in Port-au-prince, Jacmel and other towns around the country as the 27th year anniversary arrives.
In Port-au-Prince, police chief Frantz Elbe, took in about 90 school children from different national and private high schools. They visited the administrative office, DCPA, and the judicial office, DCPJ.
“We want to have a permanent contact with young people and promote community activities within the Haitian police,” Elbe told PNH.
In Clercine, a commune in Port-au-Prince, Motorized Intervention Brigade Corps (CBIM) agents cleaned a park and some streets on June 9
“Like the theme of the celebration this year says, we met with the people to clean,” said Xavier Seide, head of CBIM. “We want this collaboration to continue in the fight against insecurity too.”
In Jacmel, Marie Borgelin, the police departmental director, said the city has been calm because residents have been helping the police.
“It is important to maintain a collaboration with the population, we are one and we work for them,” Borgelin told The Haitian Times.