A gang attack in Haiti leaves more than 20 dead, dozens injured, official says
Gang members attacked a small town in central Haiti on Thursday, killing more than 20 people, including children, according to a human rights group, AP reported.
Another 50 people were injured as the Gran Grif gang burned homes and cars in the town of Pont-Sondé, said Bertide Harace, spokeswoman for the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation and Awareness to Save the Artibonite.
A video posted on social media shows a group of people fleeing through the brush, with one woman who was out of breath saying, “Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go.” In another video, dozens of people start running through a street after hearing rumors that the gang was approaching.
Harace and others criticized police in the nearby coastal city of Saint-Marc, saying they did not mobilize to help people being attacked in Pont-Sondé.
Venson François, a government prosecutor based in Saint-Marc, called the attack a “massacre” in an interview with Radio Caraïbes.
Dozens of people crowded around a hospital in Saint-Marc where the injured were taken, with one man telling reporters that local authorities are not doing enough to protect people.
The attack in Pont-Sondé was blamed on the Gran Grif gang. It operates in the central Artibonite region, and experts have described it as one of Haiti’s cruelest gangs. It has gained control of more territory since 2022 under the leadership of Luckson Elan, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department last month.
Peoplesmind