Bel Air ( ht, Bèlè, en, Good Air) is a neighborhood of

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

. It is a slum area of the city and suffers from poverty. Crime is widespread, and kidnappings and killings have created panic among the local population. The neighborhood is also noted for housing a community of artists and craftsmen who produce inspired by

Haitian Vodou Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West and Central Africa and Roman Catholicism. There is ...

, such as flags.

History

Bel Air has served as a launching site for political demonstrations demanding the return of President

Jean-Bertrand Aristide Jean-Bertrand Aristide (born 15 July 1953) is a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president. A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a parish in Port-au-Prince in ...

. In recent years it has been marred by political violence and massacres by police. In the late 19th century, Bel Air was the preferred place of settlement for British West Indian migrants to Haiti, the largest group of which were Jamaicans.

On January 5, 2005 an uprising broke out and was suppressed by hundreds of Brazilian soldiers and special units of the

Haitian National Police The Haitian National Police (PNH; french: Police Nationale d'Haïti, , National Police of Haiti) is the law enforcement and ''de facto'' police force of Haiti. It was created in 1995 to bring public security under civilian control as mandated i ...

. Five persons were reported to have been killed. The trouble in the Bel Air area of the city was seen by the authorities as a major threat to the safety of the 2005 elections in Haiti. EscombrosBelAir

The neighborhood was the most devastated area of Port-au-Prince after the

2010 Haiti earthquake A disaster, catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (department), Ouest department, a ...

Crime

At the end of 2011, the murder rate in Bel Air reached 50 murders per 100,000 residents, up from 19 murders per 100,000 residents in 2010. "Haiti’s Urban Crime Wave? Results from Monthly Household Surveys August 2011 - February 2012", Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Igarape. Kolbe, Athena R & Muggah, Robert (2012), p.4.
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References

External links

BelAirHaiti.net
Populated places in Haiti Port-au-Prince {{Haiti-geo-stub