Armed groups laid siege to Haiti’s largest prison on Saturday night, clashing with police forces, and police unions called for urgent reinforcements after repeated gang attacks in areas of the capital, as the head of an alliance of criminal organizations announced this week that coordinated actions would be launched to topple the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henri.

Two of Haiti’s main police unions have called for help to prevent inmates, many of them notorious criminals, from escaping from the Pénitencier National in the capital Port-au-Prince.

It is not clear how many have already been released by gang members, but the Gazette Haiti newspaper reported in its digital edition that it was a “large” number.

Reuters news agency sources said some of the prisoners were reluctant to try to escape en masse for fear of being caught in the crossfire.

Police officers guarding the prison “abandoned it,” according to news website AyiboPost. Among those imprisoned are many of the alleged perpetrators of the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on July 7, 2021.

The government of Haiti — the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere — has not commented on the developments so far.

The situation in the capital has worsened in recent days, with heavy gunfire ringing out in neighborhoods after gangland leader Jimmy Sergier, or “Barbecue,” a former policeman who has been sanctioned by the U.N. and the U.S., warned that attacks on overthrow of the Henri government will escalate.

The Pénitencier National has a nominal capacity of 700 places, but as of February 2023 there were 3,687 inmates, according to the Haitian human rights group RNDDH. In 2017, the same NGO warned that there was a serious problem due to overcrowding and understaffing.

The attack on the prison follows reports that gunmen attempted to take over the main port, disrupting traffic and the loading and unloading of containers the day before Friday. Gangs threatened to attack more police stations.

Jimmy Sergier this week warned residents not to send their children to school to avoid “collateral damage”.

After the assassination in 2021 of President Jovenel Moise, the multidimensional crisis — security, humanitarian, public health, political… — deepened even more in Haiti amid the spread of gangs, which gradually brought under their control a large part of the country, especially the capital. The number of homicides more than doubled in 2023, according to UN data.

In power from 2021, Mr Henry was supposed to hand over power on February 7 under a deal struck in December 2022, but stayed on, arguing that security must be restored so that free and fair elections can be held.

To help Haitian police deal with the wave of violence, the UN Security Council last October gave the green light to the deployment of an international armed force in the country, which Kenya offered to lead. But it remains unclear when it will be developed.