Heavily armed gangs in Haiti have attacked a neighborhood that is home to most of the country’s elite in the country’s latest explosion of violence that left at least 40 dead.
According to Mayor Jean Massillon, the affluent Kenscoff neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince has been under attack for eight days, with gunmen going home to home and indiscriminately opening fire on civilians.
He blamed the attack on the violent Viv Ansanm gang coalition, which controls much of the Haitian capital.
‘As we speak, they have surrounded the area,’ Massillon said as he called for reinforcements.
The dead include pastors, teachers and children, although the number is expected to be higher because authorities haven’t been able to reach certain parts of the neighborhood, which is also home to many politicians and business leaders.
Many victims are working-class people who tend crops on the outskirts of the neighborhood in the foothills of a mountain range.
Gangs already control 85% of Port-au-Prince, and the United Nations secretary-general warned last month they could soon overrun the capital.
The assault on Kenscoff occurred days after the government and police warned about imminent attacks in the Haitian city, but the warnings did not say where they might occur.
Jean Bertho Valmo, a 45-year-old farmer who fled Kenscoff, told the Associated Press that 12 members of one family were among the dead.
He said he woke to another round of gunfire before dawn Monday. He and his family sought shelter in the yard of the mayor’s office along with dozens of others.
‘There is not enough water and food for everyone,’ he said, and lamented the loss of his crops including cabbage, carrots and broccoli.
‘I invested everything I had in them,’ Valmo said. ‘The police, the government need to put a stop to this.’
The attack on Kenscoff that began on January 27 has left more than 1,660 people homeless, the International Organization for Migration said on Monday.
Overall, gang violence has left more than 1 million people homeless across Haiti in recent years.
On Friday, one police union said the attack on Kenscoff ‘could have been avoided if police had good equipment’ including a helicopter and an all-terrain vehicle, as well as funds to gather intelligence.
‘Despite these bad conditions, our policemen are making tireless sacrifices, but we cannot tolerate the negligence of the authorities on what must be done to protect their lives and the safety of the population,’ the union, SPNH-17, said in a statement.
The massacre this week is the latest violent episode in a country ravaged by gang violence and lawlessness.
Back in November 150 Haitians were killed by vigilante groups who left the corpses of mobsters chopped up and burnt on the streets.
Haiti’s security crisis dramatically escalated two months ago as gangs shot at commercial planes, flights into the country were halted, the prime minister was replaced, and armed gangs attacked parts of the capital.
Criminal gangs have attempted to take advantage of the often vacant government of Haiti which has struggled to control the country ever since the devastating 2010 earthquake which destroyed most of the infrastructure and displaced over a million.
One of the most powerful gang leaders is former police officer Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier, who is believed to have his own ambitions of one day being president.
But following over a decade of violent political turmoil, locals and police have been fighting back against the gangs, with cops and vigilante groups joining forces to lynch suspected criminals.
