Haiti gang violence leaves more than 50 dead, mayor says

By Harold Isaac and Brian Ellsworth

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Gun battles between rival gangs have killed greater than 50 folks since Friday close to Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, an area mayor mentioned on Monday, amid a unbroken escalation of violence gripping the Caribbean nation.

Shootouts between gangs within the impoverished suburb of Cite Soleil have additionally left greater than 100 folks wounded, in keeping with Cite Soleil Mayor Joel Janeus, including that fifty of these are in vital situation.

“Individuals who had been hunkering down through the shootings, the bullets went by their roofs and killed them,” Janeus mentioned in a phone interview. “People who find themselves making an attempt to flee the (space), they get hit by bullets.”

Gangs have additionally blocked entry to Varreux gasoline terminal, Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported.

West Indies Group, a Haitian conglomerate that owns the Varreux terminal, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The workplace of Prime Minister Ariel Henry didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The violence seems to be the results of a confrontation between the G9 and the GPEP gangs.

Gang violence has spiked since President Jovenel Moise was assassinated a 12 months in the past in a night-time raid, making a political vacuum and main prison teams to broaden their management of the nation’s territory

Rights activists in Could mentioned that clashes between the rival Chen Mechan and 400 Mawozo gangs had left 148 folks lifeless, a few of whom had been hacked to demise with machetes or died when their houses had been set on hearth.

Haiti on Thursday commemorated the anniversary of Moise’s homicide because the nation’s judicial authorities have but to cost anybody within the brazen assassination.

Kidnappings have elevated since then and far of the nation is now ruled by gangs.

(Reporting by Harold Isaac and Brian Ellsworth; Enhancing by Sandra Maler)