The UN Human Rights Workplace mentioned at the least 3,000 folks have been pressured to flee after gang members attacked early on Thursday.
At the very least 70 folks have been killed and three,000 pressured to flee when armed males belonging to the Gran Grif gang attacked a city in central Haiti.
The Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights mentioned on Friday that the assault occurred on Thursday in Pont-Sonde, 100km (60 miles) northwest of Port-au-Prince.
The UN added that at the least 16 folks have been critically injured within the assault, together with two gang members who have been hit throughout an alternate of gunfire with Haitian police.
The workplace mentioned gang members additionally reportedly set hearth to at the least 45 houses and 34 vehicles.
“Members of the Gran Grif gang used automated rifles to shoot on the inhabitants, killing at the least 70 folks, amongst them about 10 ladies and three infants,” UN Human Rights Workplace spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan mentioned in an announcement, including that the company was “horrified” by the assault.
UN Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres additionally condemned the assault, his spokesperson mentioned on Friday.
Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille denounced the assault on X, saying an “odious crime towards defenceless ladies, males and kids will not be solely an assault towards victims however towards the whole Haitian nation”.
“To those that sow terror, I say this: you’ll not break our resolve. You’ll not subdue this individuals who have at all times fought for his or her dignity and freedom. We are going to by no means quit our proper to reside in peace, in safety, and in justice,” Conille mentioned.
‘Mindless’ violence
The prime minister’s workplace mentioned on Friday that further safety forces, supported by the Kenyan-led worldwide policing mission, had been deployed in a single day to take care of the assault.
Nevertheless, Gran Grif’s chief, Luckson Elan, whom the UN has sanctioned, blamed the federal government and victims of the assault for remaining passive as gang members have been killed.
“It’s Pont-Sonde residents who’re at fault. What occurred in Pont-Sonde is the fault of the state,” he mentioned in an audio message posted on social media.
Whereas the motive for the assault is unclear, assaults of that sort have taken place within the capital, 80 p.c of which is managed by gangs, and they’re usually linked to turf wars.
However Pont-Sonde is taken into account a part of Gran Grif’s territory. The world is a significant rice producer positioned in Haiti’s Artibonite area.
Artibonite has skilled a few of Haiti’s worst violence outdoors Port-au-Prince, worsening starvation in a rustic the place half the inhabitants suffers from extreme meals shortages.
Final week, the UN Human Rights Workplace mentioned that thus far this yr, greater than 3,661 folks have been killed in “mindless” gang violence within the nation.
The battle has additionally displaced at the least 700,000 folks, in response to the Worldwide Group for Migration.
