The National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti captured the city of Gonaïves, starting a coup d'état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government.

The National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation and Reconstruction of Haiti was a rebel group in Haiti that controlled most of the country following the 2004 Haitian coup d'état. It was briefly known as the "Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front", after the country's central Artibonite region, before being renamed on February 19, 2004, to emphasize its national scope.

Gonaïves is a commune in northern Haiti, and the capital of the Artibonite department of Haiti. The population was 356,324 at the 2015 census.

A coup d'état in Haiti on 29 February 2004, following several weeks of conflict, resulted in the removal of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office. On 5 February, a rebel group, called the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation and Reconstruction of Haiti, took control of Haiti's fourth-largest city, Gonaïves. By 22 February, the rebels had captured Haiti's second-largest city, Cap-Haïtien and were besieging the capital, Port-au-Prince by the end of February. On the morning of 29 February, Aristide resigned under controversial circumstances and was flown from Haiti by U.S. military and security personnel. He went into exile, being flown directly to the Central African Republic, before eventually settling in South Africa.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide 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 theology and, as president, he attempted to normalize Afro-Creole culture, including Vodou religion, in Haiti.