Five hours after being shot in the belly, a Haitian accountant sat in a Port-au-Prince emergency room pondering how his homeland might be saved.

“I follow the news,” said the 60-year-old, who had been hit by a stray bullet early that morning, the latest victim of seemingly interminable gang conflict that has claimed thousands of lives in the last year alone. “And I watch the young president of El Salvador who has the same problem as us.