Attack by armed gangs causes the escape of nearly 97% of prisoners in Haiti

At least a dozen people died after armed gangs attacked the main prison in Port-au-Prince on Saturday night and caused the escape of several thousand prisoners, amid a wave of unrest shaking Haiti.

“Many bodies of detainees were counted,” Pierre Espérance, executive director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH), told AFP.

On Sunday, only a hundred prisoners remained in the National Penitentiary of Port-au-Prince of the nearly 3,800 that existed before the attack by the armed gangs, Espérance explained. It is unknown how many prisoners escaped, he added. In addition, about 97% of the prisoners in the largest prison in Port-au-Prince have escaped, according to the Collective of Lawyers for the Defense of Human Rights.

An AFP journalist who visited the prison on Sunday morning saw a dozen bodies around the prison.

Some bodies had bullet or projectile impacts, confirmed the reporter, who was able to enter the penitentiary center, whose door was “open” and where there was “almost no one.”

Between Saturday night and early Sunday morning, police “tried to repel an assault by criminal gangs on the National Penitentiary and the Croix des Bouquets prison,” the Haitian government said in a statement.

“The assault on these prisons left several prisoners and prison staff injured,” he added.

The Haitian government denounced the “rampage of heavily armed criminals who want at all costs to release people detained, especially for kidnapping, murder and other serious crimes, and who do not hesitate to execute civilians and burn and loot public and private property.”

Coordinated attacks

The French embassy in the Haitian capital earlier reported the assault, while calling for “prudence” and to avoid “displacements,” it wrote in a statement transmitted to AFP.

In turn, the Haitian National Police Union asked those police officers and soldiers who have cars, weapons and ammunition to go to the prison to reinforce security, according to a message in Creole published on the X network.

Among the prisoners who escaped there are “important members of very powerful gangs,” reported the newspaper Gazette d’Haïti.

Common criminals, gang leaders and also those accused of the 2021 murder of President Jovenel Moïse were detained in that prison, located a few blocks from the National Palace, reported the newspaper Le Nouvelliste.

Since Thursday, the assailants have been spying on that prison, the main one in the country, with drones, the media added.

Since Thursday, Port-au-Prince has been subjected to violent attacks by gangs who claim to want the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is outside the capital, according to Le Nouvelliste.

The gangs, grouped under the motto “Live together”, carry out coordinated attacks in Port-au-Prince against strategic locations such as the prison, the international airport and several police buildings.

Since the unrest began on Thursday, at least four police officers have been killed and dozens of people have been injured in a country mired in a serious political, security and humanitarian crisis.

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