More than a dozen suspected gang members have been stoned or burned alive in Haiti. The armed men traveling in a minibus were “unfortunately lynched by members of the population” after a police check on Monday in Port-au-Prince, the police said. The United Nations warned that the security situation in the Haitian capital is becoming more like that of a war-torn country.
According to the police, a search of the minibus found “weapons and other equipment”. She did not provide any information on the exact number of victims, nor how the officers lost custody of the suspects. The men were killed by residents of the Canapé-Vert neighborhood. Burned corpses were seen lying on the streets in photographs. According to eyewitnesses, other suspected gang members were stoned.
The violence began before dawn when gang members broke into several residential areas of the capital, robbing houses and attacking residents, according to eyewitnesses. Journalists from the AFP news agency reported on families fleeing the affected neighborhoods.
The United Nations, meanwhile, released a report highlighting the increase in killings and kidnappings in Haiti. Armed gangs continue to compete to “extend their territorial control in the greater Port-au-Prince area”. The violence is spreading to previously unaffected neighborhoods, it said.
With high death tolls and an increasing number of neighborhoods under the control of armed gangs, “insecurity in the capital has reached levels comparable to countries in armed conflict,” the report warns.
The number of homicides in Haiti has risen by 21 percent in the past few months to 815 in the first quarter of the year. The number of kidnappings rose by 63 percent to 637 in the same period. UN Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated the “urgent need to send an international special force” to Haiti.
The report also refers to the situation of residents of the Cité Soleil slum in the port area. There, snipers recently shot dead pedestrians on the street from roofs. “Residents feel besieged. They can no longer leave their homes for fear of armed violence and terror perpetrated by the gangs,” said the Office for the UN Emergency Relief Coordination for Haiti.
Haiti is the poorest country on the American continent. The Caribbean nation is experiencing a hunger crisis that, according to the UN World Food Program in March, has reached a critical point. There is also a cholera outbreak that has killed at least 670 people since October, according to the latest figures from the Haitian Ministry of Health.
