More than 50 Haitians who were in the United States illegally were deported Thursday by American authorities, sent back to their country, much of which is infested with armed gangs, a Haitian immigration official told AFP.

Forty men and a dozen women were flown to Cap Haitien, the country’s second-largest city, where the international airport still operates, the official said.

At the end of March, more than 480 human rights organizations requested a moratorium on “deportations to Haiti” in a letter to US President Joe Biden and his ministers Anthony Blinken (Foreign Affairs) and Alejandro Mayorkas (Homeland Security, responsible for the immigration).

“In the absence of functioning institutions, armed groups terrorize the population by indulging in systematic rapes, indiscriminate kidnappings and mass killings with complete impunity,” they stressed.

The UN, US and EU member states have in recent weeks hastily evacuated their staff and/or nationals due to the rapidly deteriorating situation.

The nine members of Haiti’s so-called presidential transition council were named Tuesday by executive order. That council is called upon to guarantee a political transition, while embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henri, who agreed to resign in March, is expected to step down, paving the way for efforts to restore stability and hold elections.

In Haiti, which has neither a president nor a parliament, elections have been held since 2016.

The capital is 80% in the hands of gangs, accused of countless atrocities — murder, rape, looting, kidnapping for ransom…

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said last week that just under 100,000 people had fled the metropolitan area of ​​the capital Port-au-Prince in a month, fleeing to the provinces to protect themselves from gang attacks.