Haiti's former capital seeks to revive its hey-day as gang violence consumes Port-au-Prince

CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti (AP) — They call it Okap, home to Haiti’s kings, emancipated slaves and revolutionaries.

Sitting on the shimmering north coast, the city of Cap-Haïtien was abandoned as a capital during the waning years of the French colonial era and again when the Kingdom of Haiti fell after its king died by suicide and his teenage son was slain.

It was once known as the Paris of the Antilles, and now it is on the brink of becoming what some say is Haiti’s de facto capital as Port-au-Prince crumbles under the onslaught of powerful gangs.

“History repeats itself,” Yvrose Pierre, Cap-Haïtien mayor, told The Associated Press on a recent afternoon.

Business owners, anxious parents and even historic state ceremonies have been relocating here, and that began even before gangs started attacking key government infrastructure in Port-au-Prince in late February. Gunmen have burned police stations, stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons to release more than 4,000 inmates and fired on the country’s main international airport, which hasn’t reopened since closing in early March.

Right now, “Cap-Haïtien is the only city that connects Haiti to the world,” Pierre said.

Palm trees dot the city that is home to roughly 400,000 people who walk about freely and stay out late. They don’t have to sidestep bodies strewn on sidewalks, run to avoid being hit by stray bullets or flinch if a pop-pop-pop fills the air, confident it’s only fireworks. Such luxuries are absent in Port-au-Prince.

More than 2,500 people were killed or injured in gang violence from January to March across Haiti, a more than 50% increase from the same period last year, according to a report Friday by the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti. The vast majority of violence is in Port-au-Prince.

Pierre credits Cap-Haïtien’s tranquility to the recent demolition of more than 1,500 homes in the city’s southern outskirts that gangs had infiltrated.

The calm is one of the biggest reasons the city has attracted some of the nearly 95,000 people who have fled Port-au-Prince’s gang violence in the past month alone.

Local authorities recently demanded that all new arrivals register at City Hall to keep track of the influx.

“A lot of people are coming, and there’s a risk of this becoming unbalanced,” the mayor said. “Cap-Haïtien doesn’t have enough resources to welcome everyone who is fleeing violence.”

She said that there are no camps or shelters for the migrants and that the city is struggling to provide food and housing for everyone, with some people forced to sleep in front of churches and grocery stores.

Schools also are overwhelmed.

At the Bell Angelot school in downtown Cap-Haïtien, officials have seen a 10% increase in enrollment and say it is still rising.

“There are too many students,” director Jocelyn Laguerre said.

He said he has had to hire new teachers and add more courses because many children arriving from Port-au-Prince are extremely behind in their studies since gang violence has forced hundreds of schools there to close.

And not all the incoming families are able to pay, which Laguerre said he understands.

“We know what is happening in this country,” he said.

There is no security at Laguerre’s school — a sharp contrast to Port-au-Prince, where heavily armed guards are a fixture at institutions where students of all ages have been kidnapped and gangs have extorted principals.

In general, private guards are largely absent in many businesses across Cap-Haïtien. On a recent afternoon, the clacks of dominoes played on a rickety outdoor table mingled with fans arguing over a yellow card issued during the Real Madrid-Manchester City soccer match, which attracted dozens of people who crowded around the doorways of open-air bars.

No one looked around in fear they might be assaulted, kidnapped or killed.

“There is more peace here than in other cities,” Alfred Joseph said as he sat in a red plastic chair in a nearby lush public park. “For me, Cap-Haïtien has always been the capital of Haiti.”

Despite the charms of the city, it shares many of Port-au-Prince’s familiar woes: poverty, grinding traffic and mountains of garbage that choke the streets, rivers and ocean.

But the absence of violence is enough for Baby Dovelus, who returned to Cap-Haïtien after a student was kidnapped at her daughter’s school in Port-au-Prince.

“It was a big relief,” she said of the move. “I feel good here. It’s my city.”

Others planning to move to Cap-Haïtien include the mother and female cousin of a university student who provided only his first name, John, for safety reasons.

John said he himself moved from Port-au-Prince to Cap-Haïtien after gang violence forced his university to close last month. He flew to Florida on Friday after obtaining a visa to study for a master’s degree in information technology.

He worries about his mother and cousin making the hours-long trip by bus from Port-au-Prince, which is more than 100 miles (200 kilometers) south of Cap-Haïtien. The gangs that control the main road heading north from Port-au-Prince have shot at public buses.

“Everyone is in danger,” he said.

As Haitians continue streaming into Cap-Haïtien, some caution that the only way for the city to really become the capital again is to decentralize the government. All state-related business is currently conducted only in Port-au-Prince.

Patrick Almonor, Cap-Haïtien’s deputy mayor, has hope. He believes that if his city avoids Port-au-Prince’s mistake of concentrating everything in a small area, it’s possible.

“We deserve to be the capital,” he said. “This is about to change.”

Men watch a soccer match televised in a shop in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man uses a wheelbarrow to transport a door, in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Students strike poses at the end of their school day, in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A clothes vendor stands in an outdoor market in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A band plays for arriving passengers at the airport in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A girl walks alongside a body of water, in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Men play dominoes in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Men watch a soccer match televised in a shop in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A private security officer guards a store in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A child sips on a drink after she was picked up from school, in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People ride on a motorcycle in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Asian shares were mostly higher Friday ahead of a report on the U.S. jobs market, while several major markets including Tokyo and Shanghai were closed for holidays.

Oil prices and U.S. futures were higher.

The Japanese yen strengthened slightly against the U.S. dollar amid signs of heavy central bank intervention to tamp down the dollar’s advance.

The financial newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that estimates showed the government spending an estimated 8 trillion yen (about $50 billion) this week in trying to keep the yen from slipping further against the dollar.

The weaker yen has helped boost prices for imported goods, a factor behind the Bank of Japan's recent decision to give up its negative interest rate policy and raise its benchmark rate to zero to 0.1% from a longstanding level of minus 0.1%. It might raise rates further, Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics said in a commentary, even if its target of 2% isn't met.

“Even though the economic case for preventing the yen from sliding is much weaker, the Ministry of Finance seems to have responded with an even more forceful round of foreign exchange interventions this week than it did two years ago," Thieliant said.

While a weak yen can be a boon to Japanese companies that earn much of their revenues overseas, significant shifts in the foreign exchange market can play havoc with corporate planning and a sharply weaker yen also boosts costs for imports of oil and other vital commodities.

The dollar was trading at 153.15 early Friday, down from 153.65 late Thursday. The euro rose to $1.0735 from $1.0727.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 1.7% to 18,518.64, tracking gains on Wall Street. News of fresh moves by Chinese leaders to energize the economy helped drive buying of technology shares.

E-commerce giant Alibaba climbed 3.9% and rival JD.com was up 5%. Baidu advanced 4.2%.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6% to 7,629.00 and the Kospi in Seoul slipped 0.3% to 2,676.63. Taiwan's Taiex picked up 0.5%.

India's Sensex shed 0.9% to 73,952.37.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose 0.9% to 5,064.20, a day after swinging sharply when the Federal Reserve said it's likely delaying cuts to interest rates but not planning to hike them. That more than halved its drop for the week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9% to 38,225.66, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.5%, to 15,840.96.

On Friday, the U.S. government will report on how many jobs employers added last month, one of the most highly anticipated economic updates each month.

Economists expect it to show a slowdown in hiring.

A report Thursday showed that fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest signal that the job market remains solid despite high interest rates.

A separate, potentially more disappointing report suggested growth in how much U.S. workers produced per hour worked was weaker at the start of 2024 than economists expected. A measure comparing labor costs to productivity, meanwhile, rose by more than expected in the preliminary report. That could put upward pressure on inflation.

Apple climbed 2.2% ahead of its profit report, which arrived after trading ended Thursday.

DoorDash sank 10.3% after reporting a worse loss than expected, while Peloton Interactive swung from an early gain to a loss of 2.8% after it said it would cut roughly 400 jobs as part of a program to save $200 million in costs annually. It also said its CEO, Barry McCarthy, is stepping down. The company’s stock had fallen to a record low last week.

The U.S. economy is in a tight spot, where the hope is that it remains strong enough to stay out of a recession but not so strong that it worsens the already stalled progress on inflation.

Stubbornly high readings on inflation this year pushed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to say on Wednesday that it will likely take “longer than previously expected” to get enough confidence about inflation to cut interest rates.

In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 17 cents to $79.12 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 5 cents on Thursday.

Brent crude, the international standard, added 18 cents to $83.85 per barrel.

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Currency traders pass by the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 3, 2024. Asian shares were mostly higher Friday ahead of a report on the U.S. jobs market, with several major markets including Tokyo and Shanghai closed for holidays. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 3, 2024. Asian shares were mostly higher Friday ahead of a report on the U.S. jobs market, with several major markets including Tokyo and Shanghai closed for holidays. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader smiles near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)