Haiti gang kills at least 70 as thousands flee: UN

Armed men belonging to the Gran Grif gang have killed at least 70 people, including three infants, and forced at least 3000 to flee as they swept through a Haitian town shooting automatic rifles at residents, the United Nations says.

"We are horrified by Thursday's gang attacks in the town of Pont-Sonde in Haiti's Artibonite department," UN spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said in a statement.

At least another 16 people were seriously injured in the attack in the early hours of Thursday, including two gang members hit during an exchange of fire with Haitian police, according to the UN.

The gang members reportedly set fire to at least 45 houses and 34 vehicles, forcing residents to flee their homes.

Aujourd'hui, une fois de plus, une fois de trop, nous faisons face à la lâcheté la plus absolue. Une attaque brutale, sans raison, a frappé des citoyens innocents à Pont Sondé. Ce crime odieux, perpétré contre des femmes, des hommes, et des enfants sans défense, n'est pas…— Garry Conille (@ConilleGarry) October 4, 2024

The killings are the latest sign of a worsening conflict in the Caribbean country, where armed gangs control most of the capital Port-au-Prince and are expanding to nearby regions, fuelling hunger and making hundreds of thousands homeless while nearby countries continue to deport migrants back to the country.

"This odious crime against defenceless women, men and children is not only an attack against victims but against the entire Haitian nation," Prime Minister Garry Conille said on X.

Conille added that security forces were "reinforcing their intervention" in the area.

His office said the public hospital in nearby Saint-Marc was boosting capacity to treat the wounded.

Haitian online TV showed security forces moving into Pont-Sonde, where a burnt-out vehicle lay on the road and bullet casings were gathered on the ground.

In an audio message shared on social media on Thursday, Gran Grif leader Luckson Elan, who was sanctioned by the UN last month, blamed the state and victims for the attacks, accusing residents of remaining passive while his fighters were killed by police or vigilante groups.

"It's Pont-Sonde residents who are at fault. What happened in Pont-Sonde is the fault of the state," he said.

The UN has accused Elan's gang of killings, rapes, mass kidnappings, robbery, destroying property, hijacking trucks and forcing farmers off swaths of land, threatening to kill them if they return.

"Gran Grif has also committed some of the highest levels of child recruitment in Haiti," according to the UN Security Council.

The UN believes Haiti's gangs are armed largely by guns trafficked from the United States.

But Haiti's judicial system has been paralysed for years.

According to the UN, no progress has been made in the cases of any mass killings committed since 2021 as well as several major massacres since 2017.

Police are alleged to have taken part in some massacres.

Gang leader Jimmy "Barbeque" Cherizier, a former police officer, was accused by the UN of planning and taking part in the 2018 killing of 71 civilians in the capital's port-side neighbourhood of La Saline.

The port, a key supply corridor, has been closed since late last month due to gang attacks, worsening the already dire food crisis.

Pont-Sonde is a major rice producer located in Haiti's breadbasket Artibonite region, built around a bridge and important crossing connecting the capital to the north.

The region has been the scene of some of the worst violence outside the capital, compounding a worsening hunger crisis that has left half the population with severe food insecurity and thousands in Port-au-Prince facing famine-level hunger.

Cherizier, who has acted as spokesman for an alliance of armed gangs in the capital, said in a video the attack was part of a plan to prevent Artibonite from supplying food to the country.

The number of people internally displaced by the conflict has surged past 700,000, nearly doubling in six months despite the partial deployment of a UN-backed mission mandated to help under-resourced police restore order.

"We cannot turn a blind eye," said Raouf Mazou, an executive at the UN's refugee agency, on Friday, pointing to shortages in food, medical supplies and blocked humanitarian aid.

Haiti has so far received a fraction of the resources it was promised and been frustrated in efforts to bring in a formal UN peacekeeping mission.

Many countries made formal pledges of money and troops but so far only about 400 have arrived, mostly from Kenya.