Cherere Belhumeur and her 15-year-old son live in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She says gangs have run them out of their home and they can't go back.
“The gang members told us if we go back to our homes, they're going to kill us,” Belhumeur said. “We're so frightened, we're so afraid and we don't have nowhere to go.”
She's now desperately trying to escape and meet up with her family in Miami, but the border and the airports are shut down.
“Every day you get up being afraid, you don't know the next time another gang is going to come where we at to take over this area,” Belhumeur said.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
On Tuesday, a small group of protestors set tires on fire in the capital, as the country prepares for new leadership.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is now preparing for a potential rush of Haitian migrants. On Wednesday, he directed the Division of Emergency Management, the Florida State Guard and state law enforcement agencies to deploy over 250 additional officers and soldiers and over a dozen air and sea craft to the southern coast of Florida.
Haiti's prime minister said he'd step down as soon as a new interim government takes over, but a notorious gang leader known as “Barbecue” is calling for civil war.
Belhumeur prays she can escape in time.
“We're just living and we don't know where to go, what to do,” Belhumeur said.
According to U.S. Southern Command, the Department of State requested the U.S. Southern Command deploy a U.S. Marine Fleet-Anti-terrorism Security Team to maintain strong security capabilities at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince and conduct relief in place for their current Marines.
