The repeated assaults of a gang against the inhabitants of a district of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, left 30 dead, including two police officers, as well as four missing and more than a dozen injured, according to the report drafted Thursday, August 17 by a human rights organization.
Since Tuesday, thousands of residents have fled Carrefour-Feuilles, a strategic neighborhood for gangs, which control much of this poor country ravaged by violence.
The gang behind the attack, led by Renel Destina (or Ti Lapli), looted and burned houses. Some of the victims were killed with automatic weapons.
The assessment of the violence in Carrefour-Feuilles was provided to Agence France-Presse (AFP) by the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH). “These data were compiled from the testimonies of the parents and relatives of the victims we met”explained the executive director of RNDDH, Pierre Espérance.
A resident, Dominique Charles, told AFP that she had lost her mother, her stepfather, her 18-year-old son, two sisters and a brother in these attacks.
“Molotov cocktails”
“The attackers attacked our house with Molotov cocktails. I was able to escape, but the other family members weren’t so lucky.”she said, coming to testify at the headquarters of the RNDDH.
Since the beginning of the week, this violence has caused the flight of more than 5,000 people according to Jerry Chandler, the director general of Haitian civil protection.
They left Carrefour-Feuilles on foot, on motorbikes or crammed into cars, some with suitcases on their heads or mattresses on the roof of the vehicle, trying to take away a handful of personal belongings. Among them, “women, children, old people”explained Jerry Chandler.
These thousands of displaced have found refuge in schools or in a sports center, or sometimes in the street, with or without a makeshift tent for shelter. The authorities announced on Thursday that they had started distributing hot meals and drinking water to the victims.
Haiti has been stuck for years in a deep economic, security and political crisis, which has reinforced the hold of gangs. The latter control about 80% of the Haitian capital, and crimes are frequent. “Between the 1er January and August 15 of this year, at least 2,439 people were killed, and 902 others were injured” in connection with these armed bands, declared Friday the spokeswoman of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, during a working meeting of the UN in Geneva.