New leaders take on Haiti’s chaos as those living in fear demand swift solutions to gang violence WHIO TV 7 and WHIO Radio [Video]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — (AP) — It has been only a day since the transitional presidential council was installed in Haiti, and the list of demands on the Caribbean nation’s new leaders is rapidly growing. Haitians want security, food, jobs — and they want them now.

The members of the council, tasked with with bringing political stability to Haiti, are under immense pressure to produce quick results, despite a deep-seated crisis that has been years in the making.

Making Haiti safer is a priority. More than 2,500 people were killed or injured from January to March alone, and more than 90,000 have fled the capital of Port-au-Prince so far this year amid relentless gang violence.

“The task is really monumental,” said Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia.

Gangs have burned police stations, opened fire on the main international airport that has been closed since early March, and stormed the country’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.

Gangs now control 80% of Port-au-Prince, …