Haiti: At least 30 people dead after gang attacks town

By Africanews with AP

At least 30 people were dead and dozens more missing on Monday after a gang renewed its attack on a town in central Haiti, according to human rights activists.

Gran Grif attacked Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite early Sunday, burning homes and leaving bodies strewn on the streets. The gang attacked again on Monday, said Bertide Horace, spokesperson for the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation and Awareness to Save the Artibonite, an activist group.

She told The Associated Press that the gang remained in control of the Jean-Denis neighborhood and set up roadblocks.

“The area is completely deserted,” she said by phone. “Only the gangs have control.”

She said her organization has collected at least 30 bodies and was investigating reports of people missing.

“Communication is very bad over there,” she noted.

Antonal Mortimé, a human rights lawyer and co-executive director of the Défenseurs Plus human rights group, told Radio Caraïbes that 70 people were believed killed, based on reports from activists on the ground.

Haiti’s National Police said officers backed by Kenyan police leading a U.N.-supported mission helped rescue people in the Jean-Denis neighborhood but were delayed because gangs had dug large holes to prevent police from entering.

Police in a statement reported at least 16 people killed and 10 others injured by gunfire.

Estimates of people killed and injured can vary wildly in the immediate aftermath of gang attacks in Haiti because of limited communication and authorities’ inability to enter the area.

Gangs control an estimated 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and have seized control of swaths of land in Haiti’s central region.

The United Nations human rights office earlier this year called gangs’ consolidation of control in the capital and neighboring areas “unprecedented,” and said more than 5,500 people were killed in Haiti from March 1, 2025, to Jan. 15.

Gran Grif, the largest gang operating in the Artibonite region, attacked Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite nearly a year ago, forcing dozens of people to swim and wade across the country’s longest river to escape.

Gran Grif also was blamed for an attack in the central town of Pont-Sonde in October 2024, where more than 70 people were killed in one of the biggest massacres in Haiti’s recent history.

Gran Grif was formed after Prophane Victor, a former member of Parliament who represented Petite Rivière, began arming young men in the region, according to a U.N. report.