by Gangs attacked two prisons in Haiti, including the country’s largest penitentiary, and allowed prisoners to escape on Saturday night, according to Haitian officials, the latest example of escalating violence and disorder in the country’s capital, which has been devastated by gang violence for more than two years.
While details of the attack remained unclear, Haiti’s government issued a statement on Sunday saying that police officers were unable to prevent gang members from releasing “a large number of prisoners,” adding that several inmates and prison staff were found wounded.
Haiti’s national penitentiary housed nearly 4,000 inmates at the time of the attack and the other facility, the Croix-des-Bouquets civil prison, held approximately 1,400, according to local human rights groups.
At least two of the country’s police unions took to social media Saturday calling for all police officers to report to the national prison in Port-au-Prince, the capital, to help control the situation and prevent inmates from fleeing.
“If we let the gangs take over the penitentiary, we are finished,” the national police union SNPH-17 said in a post on X. “No one will be spared in the capital.”
Haiti’s national penitentiary, built to hold only 800 people, houses several high-profile inmates, such as Colombian commandos accused of being part of the group that killed Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021.
A Haitian lawyer for several of the soldiers accused of the murder, Samuel Madistin, told the New York Times that he had spoken to his clients, who said the national prison was almost empty of inmates. Only those who were too old or disabled to flee and those accused of Moïse’s murder remained, Madistin said, for fear of being persecuted if they left prison.
Videos circulating on social media on Sunday appeared to show journalists wandering through parts of the penitentiary mostly empty of prisoners.
“The attack was obvious,” said Lionel Lazarre, coordinator of the National Union of Haitian Police Officers, adding that the gang members did not try to hide their plans to approach the penitentiary. “There is a lack of attention on the part of the police authorities who did not take these messages seriously or take sufficient measures to reinforce security.”
Commissioner Ernst Dorfeuille, a senior police officer in charge of operations in Port-au-Prince, said the Internet had been cut, making it difficult to obtain an assessment of the situation. Still, he said it appeared that most of the prisoners had escaped. “I don’t think there are any inmates left down there,” he said, adding, “The gangs came together and the strike force was in their favor.”
The Haitian government said it would locate the escaped prisoners and arrest those responsible for the attack.
Haiti has fallen into a state of extreme unrest after Moïse’s assassination sparked widespread gang violence and the near-total collapse of security. Of a force of about 15,000 officers, almost 3,000 have left their jobs in the last two years, according to police figures.
The country has no president or any other elected national official, and gangs, who have taken control of much of Port-au-Prince, terrorize thousands of people every day. Last year at least 5,000 people were killed in Haiti, according to the United Nations.
Violence in the country escalated last week after Prime Minister Ariel Henry traveled to Kenya to finalize a deal under which that country would send 1,000 police officers to help restore order in Haiti.
The assault on the prisons is part of a wave of attacks that armed gangs have carried out in recent days while Haiti’s prime minister is out of the country. The goal, according to Jimmy Chérizier, leader of a gang known as Barbecue, is to overthrow what remains of the government.
In a video message on Thursday, Chérizier said: “With our weapons and with the Haitian people, we will liberate the country.”
On Sunday, the US Embassy in Haiti issued a security alert warning US citizens to leave the country as soon as possible.
It is unclear whether an international police force led by Kenya, which has been criticized by human rights groups, could help control the violence. The recent attacks are a clear show of force in the gang-ravaged nation, experts say.
“The gangs seem to be sending a message of intimidation to troops who may soon deploy to Haiti, saying, ‘Well, we are forming a united front and we can attack simultaneously,'” said Diego Da Rin, a Haiti expert with the Group of international crisis.
Romain Le Cour, a security analyst at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said: “Honestly, it is a situation where there is absolute absence and silence of the state,” adding that some of the violence had probably been planned for weeks. , while some were spontaneous.
Although Haitian authorities have been losing ground for years, Le Cour said, recent days have shown that armed gangs have achieved a “crucial shift” in the balance of power.
“This is probably one of the first times these targeted, targeted attacks have occurred. It’s not like before,” she added. “Now they’re just going for it.”
