Port-au-Prince, Haiti (AFP) — Negotiations to form a transitional council to govern Haiti advanced on Wednesday, officials said, against a backdrop of intense gang violence that has plunged the country into chaos.

Haiti has been rocked by a surge of unrest since February when armed groups raided a prison, releasing thousands of inmates, as they demanded Prime Minister Ariel Henry resign.

Last week Henry agreed to step aside to allow the formation of an interim government, but negotiations have been slow despite pressure from neighbouring Caribbean countries and the United States.

“Discussions continue. I’m sure it will take a little bit of time. But from all indications, it’s moving along,” Guyana’s ambassador to the UN, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, said.

A Haitian Government source told AFP that no list of names for the council had yet been given to outgoing Prime Minister Henry as talks among political parties and others dragged on.

President Jovenel Moise, who appointed Henry, was assassinated in 2021 and never replaced. The council would name an interim prime minister to oversee the country’s first elections since 2016.

Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince has been overrun by armed groups for weeks, with many police stations, public buildings and facilities attacked, and dead bodies left strewn in the street.

Shooting erupted again Tuesday and Wednesday in outlying parts of the capital, according to residents, with locals barricading roads to impede gang access and to protect themselves.

“I’m ruined,” Gerard Vil, a street trader in the capital, told AFP. “I sold things in the centre of Port-au-Prince. Since insecurity has sky-rocketed, you can no longer sell there.”

The violence has exacerbated an already grim humanitarian situation, with the United Nations warning of famine, malnutrition and the collapse of basic services.

Henry has been stranded in Puerto Rico after the gangs’ coordinated attacks began while he was in Kenya, hoping to nail down a plan for Nairobi to lead a UN-approved police force to restore order in Haiti.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday urged Haitian stakeholders to put aside their differences and unite.

The United States and European Union member states are among the countries that have evacuated diplomatic personnel from Haiti due to the worsening security.