PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — More than 1,000 workers organized a protest Monday in Haiti’s capital to demand a higher minimum wage as the conflict in Iran deepens, driving up oil prices.
Workers at the state-owned Metropolitan Industrial Park, informally known as Sonapi, gathered outside its gates in Port-au-Prince and shouted, “When we are hungry, we don’t mess around!”
Employees noted that they haven’t had a raise since 2023, and that they can no longer afford basic goods given that Haiti’s government increased diesel prices by 37% and gasoline prices by 29% earlier this month.
“A gallon of gas is higher than our minimum daily wage,” said Marc Jean Jean-Pierre, a 47-year-old father of two children.
He works at a factory making jeans, earning 685 Haitian gourdes ($5.23) a day, while a gallon of gasoline costs 850 gourdes ($6.49).
“You can see what we’re going through,” he said.
Jean-Pierre used to take public transportation to get to work, but now he walks for an hour to save money since the round-trip fare has increased by 100 gourdes (76 cents).
“We will be in the street until the government hears our voice,” he said.
Joining Monday’s protest was Maxime Excellence, a 49-year-old factory janitor, who worried about rising transportation prices, among other things.
“On top of it, I have to eat. I can’t spent the whole day not eating,” he said. “God knows what I’m going to have to eat when I get home.”
Excellence said the workers’ demands are fair.
“We can barely make ends meet with what we’re living on," he said.
He said that he would continue to protest until their demands are met and would resort to violence if necessary.
James Cardichon, a 37-year-old factor worker who makes T-shirts, echoed those sentiments.
“We need a revolution for them to understand,” he said, adding that the factory conditions also need to improve. “We are leaving our sweat behind.”
He said that workers are seeking a better salary so their children don’t have to experience the same problems.
“We are tired,” he said. “Our country is infested by gangs. The bus charges more because they have to pay the gangs to get through, and we end up paying for everything.”
Cardichon also said he was upset about the ongoing promises by government officials to improve the country’s situation.
“We are tired of promises,” he said. “We want them to take action, and quickly.”
Some Haitians who joined the protest don’t work at the industrial park but wanted to express their frustration at Haiti’s spiraling crises, with gang violence surging and poverty deepening.
Garry Jean Paul, 35, who sells cellphones on the street, said that rising oil prices are worsening the country’s situation.
“Some days I make a couple hundred of gourdes, some days I have to go home with nothing,” he said. “Families are doing things they are not supposed to be doing. They are begging.”
Factory workers march to demand a salary increase in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Factory workers march to demand a salary increase in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
National Police patrol alongside a march by factory workers demanding a salary increase in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, April 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Iran reversed its decision to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and warned that it would continue to block transit through the strait as long as the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remained in effect.
The escalating standoff over the critical choke point threatened to deepen the energy crisis roiling the global economy and push the two countries toward renewed conflict, even as mediators expressed confidence that a new deal was within reach.
The strait is closed until the U.S. blockade is lifted, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy said Saturday night. Hours earlier, two gunboats from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard opened fire on a tanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. It reported that the tanker and crew were safe, without identifying the vessel or its destination.
Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through the strait and further limits would squeeze the already constrained supply, driving prices higher once again. Meanwhile, a 10-day truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon appeared to be holding.
The fighting in the Middle East conflict, which is approaching the two-month mark, has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, nearly 2,300 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.
Here is the latest:
Iran’s chief negotiator says his country wants “a lasting peace so that war is not repeated again.”
Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf made the comments in a televised interview late Saturday, a few days before a ceasefire deadline is set to expire, according to Iranian state media.
“What is fundamental for us is distrust of the United States,” he said. “At the same time, we have good intentions and seek a lasting peace — one that prevents the recurrence of war.”
He said that the Islamabad negotiations didn’t address the mistrust, but that the U.S. and Iranian negotiators “reached a more realistic understanding of one another.”
He said that the two sides achieved progress in the Islamabad talks, but disagreement remained on some key issues, including the nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz.
“The gaps remain wide and some fundamental issues are still unresolved,” he said.
He didn’t elaborate with further details.
The Lebanese army said in a statement Sunday that it reopened the Khardali road that links the southern city of Nabatiyeh with the town of Marjayoun.
The army said that it also reopened the road that links the port city of Tyre with the village of Bourj Rahhal. The army is also working on reopening other roads, including a bridge on the Litani River in the village of Tayr Filsay.
During Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon over the past several weeks, Israel’s air force has destroyed several bridges on the river.
After a 10-day ceasefire was declared as of midnight Thursday, the Lebanese army and the Litani Authority have been working on putting up temporary bridges to replace the destroyed ones.
Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed as long as the U.S. imposes a naval blockade on Iran.
“It is impossible for others to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while we cannot,” he said in televised comments aired by Iranian semiofficial media late Saturday.
Qalibaf, who is Iran’s chief negotiator with the United States, said that the strait is now under Iran’s control, linking the choke point’s reopening to the U.S. lifting of its blockade.
“If the U.S. does not lift the blockade, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will definitely be restricted,” he said.
He said that the ceasefire was on verge of collapse when the U.S. attempted to mine-clear the strait.
He said Iran viewed the U.S. attempt as a violation of the ceasefire.
“The situation escalated to the point of conflict but the enemy retreated,” he said.
Israel’s military says another soldier died in combat in southern Lebanon, the second death announced in under 12 hours.
It brought the total number of soldiers killed in Lebanon to 15, and was the second soldier killed in combat since the ceasefire.
The military said that another soldier was badly wounded, along with four moderately wounded and four slightly injured.
The navy of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said that it extended the closure to the corridor it had earlier designated for the safe passage of vessels through the strategic waterway and declared the strait fully closed until the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and ships is lifted.
On Friday, Iran said that vessels could move through the strait in coordination with it and against the payment of a toll.
But in a statement late Saturday carried by Iran’s state media, the navy warned that any violating vessel would be targeted.
Iran considers the U.S. blockade a violation of the ceasefire between the two countries. Two vessels were attacked earlier on Saturday in the Strait of Hormuz and off Oman’s coast, at least one of them by Iranian gunboats.
Excavators remove rubble from destroyed buildings that were hit on Thursday by Israeli airstrikes, as they keep searching for victims in Tyre city, southern Lebanon, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A woman member of the Basij paramilitary, affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, holds her gun during a state-organized rally in support of the supreme leader marking National Girl's Day in Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
President Donald Trump listens to speeches before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Barber Mohammad Mehdi cuts the hair of his client Ayman Al Zein inside his shop, which was damaged in an Israeli airstrike that also damaged Al Zein's shop, in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
The sun rises behind a tanker anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Qeshm Island, Iran, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Asghar Besharati)
