At least 70 killed, 30 wounded in Haiti gang attack, rights group says | Crime News

The death toll provided by the rights group Defenders Plus significantly exceeds the official estimate of 16.

At least 70 people were killed and 30 injured in an attack near Petite-Riviere in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region, a human rights group said, significantly higher than official estimates, which put the death toll at around 16.

Residents and officials told local media that the attack began in the early hours of Sunday in rural communities around Jean-Denis, and continued into the early hours of Monday, with gang members storming the area and setting houses on fire.

The Defenders Plus rights group said it estimated that 6,000 people had been displaced by the violence. The United Nations estimated that more than 2,000 people had fled their homes in the previous days, following raids by armed gangs nearby.

Police initially reported 16 dead and 10 injured, while a preliminary report from civil protection authorities said 17 were killed and 19 were wounded, mostly men.

A spokesman for the UN secretary-general told a news conference that the organization’s office in Haiti, BINUH, was closely monitoring the events and that estimates ranged from 10 to 80 people killed. I asked for a thorough investigation.

“The lack of a security response and the abandonment of Artibonite to armed groups demonstrates a complete abdication of responsibility by the authorities,” Defenseurs Plus said in a joint statement with the Collective to Save the Artibonite.

An audio message that spread on social media was attributed to Luckson Elan, leader of Gran Grif. In the message, Elan appears to say the attack was in retaliation for attacks on the group’s base in Savien by a rival armed group.

The Artibonite region, an important agricultural area, has seen some of Haiti’s worst violence. Gang conflict has extended beyond the capital, Port-au-Prince, despite more aggressive policing and promises of more foreign support for Haiti’s security forces.

Haiti’s national police said it deployed three armored vehicles, which were delayed by holes dug by gang members in the road. Officials said the armed group had fled the area when police arrived, and several houses had already been burned.

The injured were then taken to a local hospital, and the dead to two mortuaries, the police said, adding that they had launched an operation to trace the gang members who fled.

Defenders Plus estimated that 50 houses were burnt down.

Nearly 20,000 people have been killed in Haiti since 2021, according to a recent UN report, with the death toll rising each year as increasingly independent and powerful armed gangs clash with security forces and local vigilante groups.

Gran Grif and Viv Ansanm, which group together hundreds of gangs in the capital, have been designated by the United States as “terrorist” organizations. The groups have been accused of mass murder, gang rape, arson, theft and trafficking in weapons, drugs and organs.

This month, the US offered a reward of up to $3 million for information about their financial activities.

This weekend’s attack is the latest in a series of massacres in the area, largely attributed to Gran Grif. In October 2024, a Gran Grif attack on the nearby town of Pont-Sonde left 115 dead, as gunmen shot residents door-to-door.

More than 1.4 million people – about 12 percent of the Caribbean’s most populous nation – have been displaced by the conflict with armed gangs, exacerbating an economic crisis and access to food.