2023-04-25 13:17:37
Anger erupted in Haiti this week, amid a months-long escalation of violence that the United Nations says plunges the country into a scenario akin to “a country at war.” In one of the bloodiest episodes, more than a dozen alleged they were stoned and burned alive this Monday by inhabitants of a neighborhood in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The violent attack on Monday occurred after police detained the armed men, amid heightened tensions in the capital.
“During the search of a minibus with armed individuals on board, the police confiscated weapons and other equipment. On the other hand, more than a dozen individuals who were traveling aboard this vehicle were unfortunately lynched by members of the population,” the police said. Haitian police in a statement.
The police did not specify the exact number of victims, nor the circumstances in which they lost custody of the suspects, who were later murdered by inhabitants of the wealthy neighborhood of Canapé-Vert, in the south of Port-au-Prince. According to some sources, the alleged dead gang members would be 13.
The aggression revealed the population’s fed up with the increasingly lawless situation in Port-au-Prince, where criminal groups have taken control of about 60% of the city since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021.
A witness who gave his name as Edner Samuel told The Associated Press that the mob took away the suspected gang members, beat and stoned them, then put tires on them, doused them with gasoline and set them on fire.
An AP reporter at the scene saw 13 bodies burning in a street.
The flames drew hundreds of onlookers in the city’s mountainous suburb, many holding their noses to avoid inhaling the smoke. So far, the Canape Vert neighborhood has avoided falling under gang control.
Samuel said the suspects were believed to be heading to another area of the city to join a group of gang members fighting police. Another witness, Jean Josue, claimed to have heard many shots in the area since early morning.
Assaults and justice by own hand
It is that the violence had begun before dawn, when groups of gang members broke into several residential neighborhoods of the capital, they robbed houses and attacked neighbors, according to witnesses.
“The noise of projectiles woke us up this morning. It was three in the morning, the gangs invaded us. There were shots,” a resident of the Turgeau neighborhood, also in the south of the capital, told AFP.
“If the gangs invade us, we will defend ourselves, we also have our own weaponswe have machetes, we are going to take their weapons, we are not going to run away,” added another neighbor, very tense.
The situation in the capital remained tense and shots could be heard from several neighborhoods.
Later, in the area around Turgeau, a few minutes’ drive from Canape Vert, witnesses said police had killed six suspected gang members in a shootout and area residents dragged the bodies from where they were shot to a central place and set fire to them.
The AP was unable to independently verify those accounts.
Witnesses from Canape Vert said the suspects were believed to be members of the Kraze Barye gang, which translates to “Breaking Barriers.”
Authorities say the group is led by Vitel’Homme Innocent, who is accused of helping to kidnap 17 American missionaries in October 2021 and who is also linked to Moïse’s murder.
United Nations alert
Earlier, the UN declared that insecurity in the Haitian capital has reached levels “comparable to those of a country at war”, in a report in which he highlighted the significant increase in homicides and kidnappings in the country.
“The Haitian people are victims of one of the worst human rights crises for decades and in a situation of great humanitarian emergency,” Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in the report.
“The high number of deaths and the growing area controlled by armed gangs mean that insecurity in the capital has reached levels comparable to those of countries in a situation of armed conflict,” he added.
Between January 1 and March 31, the period studied by the report, the number of homicides on the Caribbean island increased by 21% compared to the previous quarter (815 against 673), and the number of kidnappings by 63% ( 637 vs. 391).
Armed gangs “continue to dispute control of territory in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and extend to neighborhoods that until now were exempt” from criminal violence, according to the report.
This means that “the situation of the people who live in the areas controlled by the armed gangs is appalling” and “it is radically deteriorating in the areas that have been new targets of the gangs.”
The report highlighted in particular the situation of the inhabitants of the Cité Soleil neighborhood, on the outskirts of the capital, where snipers shoot pedestrians from rooftops.
“The fighting is raging in the Cité Soleil,” the UN humanitarian coordinator for Haiti said in a statement on Sunday.
Source: AFP and AP
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