Montevideo. The United Nations Office in Haiti (UN Haiti) reported this Friday that in the recent massacre perpetrated by a gang in Pont Sondé, 70 people died, triple the number initially reported, including three babies.
“We are horrified by the gang attacks on Thursday in Pont Sondé, Artibonita department, in Haiti. Members of the Gran Grif gang, with automatic rifles, fired on the population, killing at least 70 people, including including about 10 women and three babies,” UN Haiti said in a statement.
According to the Office, at least 16 people were seriously injured, including two gang members involved in an exchange of gunfire with Haitian police.
Press reports indicate that Gran Grif carried out the massacre on Thursday night, after setting fire to fifty houses and thirty vehicles, in response to the attempts of a local self-defense group to prevent the gang from imposing the collection of rents and tolls in the area.
“We call for an increase in international financial and logistical assistance to the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti,” urged UN Haiti, which also demanded a rapid and thorough investigation of the attack, the prosecution of those responsible and reparation to the victims. .
A day before the massacre, the gang’s leader, Savien Luckson, announced that he would punish the people of Pont Sondé.
Haitian Prime Minister Gary Conille called the crime “absolute cowardice,” calling it an attack on the entire nation.
The Haitian National Police (PNH) deployed its Temporary Anti-Gang Unit (UTAG, French acronym) as reinforcements on the ground to locate centers of organized crime in Artibonite.
Haiti has long been mired in a socioeconomic and political crisis that worsened after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021.
Since then, government inaction has led to an unprecedented rise in violence by gangs that control entire areas of the country and engage in extortion and kidnappings for ransom.
More than 110,000 Haitians were forced to flee their homes in the last seven months due to violence by criminal gangs, especially in Gressier, according to a report published in early October by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The IOM estimates that more than 700,000 people, more than half of whom are children, are now internally displaced in Haiti; The figure represents an increase of 22 percent compared to June.
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