Haiti’s capital in the dark after residents storm hydroelectric plant

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PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince was in the dark on Wednesday after residents of a nearby town stormed a dam and brought it offline in protest at government inaction over gang violence.

Gangs have tightened their grip on Haiti, with a record 1.3 million people displaced in the past six months, according to U.N. estimates.

Local media reported that residents of the central town of Mirebalais, to the north of Port-au-Prince, marched on Tuesday afternoon into the hydroelectric plant which powers much of the region and brought it offline.

Videos and photos circulating on social media, which Reuters was unable to immediately verify, showed them entering the building. They also reportedly toppled an electric transmission tower.

Haiti’s transitional government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The outburst came after authorities and gangs faced off in Mirebalais earlier in the day, local media reported, with gangs capturing a security vehicle and setting it on fire. Reuters was not immediately able to verify images of the incident.

This would be the second time residents forcibly shuttered the hydroelectric plant in recent months. In May, interim Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime promised swift action to ensure a similar incident would not happen again.

Haitians are growing increasingly frustrated with the government as the transition council fails to deliver on promises to stabilize the nation, which has been without a president since Jovenel Moise was assassinated in 2021.

A Kenya-led, U.N.-backed security mission to the nation has also failed to make headway in tackling the crisis.

World leaders have increasingly called for the mission to become a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission, while the U.S. and Colombia have floated deploying troops through the Organization of American States.

(Reporting by Harold Isaac and Kylie Madry; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez)