Bel Air (, ) is a neighborhood of

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( ; ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Haiti, most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2022 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The me ...

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

. 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 religions, 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 Africa, West and ...

, such as flags.

History

In the late 19th century, Bel Air was the preferred place of settlement for

British West Indian The British West Indies (BWI) were the territories in the West Indies under British rule, including Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas ...

migrants to Haiti, the largest group of which were

Jamaicans Jamaicans are the citizens of Jamaica and their descendants in the Jamaican diaspora. The vast majority of Jamaicans are of Sub-Saharan African descent, with minorities of Europeans, Indians, Chinese, Middle Eastern, and others of mixed a ...

. 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 in 1991 before being deposed in a coup d'état. As a priest, he taught liberation theo ...

. In recent years, it has been marred by political violence and massacres by police. 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; ) 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 in Haiti's constitution. As of 2023, the force has 9,000 acti ...

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

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