At least 108 gang members have been killed in Haiti in three days, reports the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), a figure that constitutes the latest assessment of the recent upsurge in violence in Haiti, where armed gangs have stepped up attacks and attempted Tuesday to invade one of the capital’s upscale neighborhoods, Pétion-Ville, https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43672-haiti-flash-attempted-takeover-of-petion-ville-at-least-28-bandits-killed.html only to be repelled by the police and residents armed with machetes…

Pierre Espérance, the Executive Director of the RNDDH, explained that in a good number of cases, the police fatally wounded the armed individuals, then the population set fire to the bodies. In other cases, it was the residents themselves who killed bandits to protect themselves, exasperated by these gangs that are increasingly taking control of neighborhoods.

According to the RNDDH, among the 90 deaths on Tuesday, 25 occurred in the Canapé Verte neighborhood and 15 along the Pan-American Highway near the Oasis Hotel in Pétion-Ville. On Thursday, 6 other alleged gang members were killed between Delmas 57 and 59 and the Christ-Roi neighborhood.

"Justice is sick," said Esperance. "How can we explain that since 2018, you have all these massacres, all these rapes, these kidnappings and that there is no judicial process ? Justice has completely collapsed [...]"

"We are in total anarchy," declared Wilner Morin, the new Protector of Citizens, this week. "We are in a situation where [...] the population is so backed up against the wall that they feel like they can take justice into their own hands [...] It’s very serious."

Known as the "Bwa Kale" movement, acts of vigilantism (self-righteousness) by unorganized groups of Haitians and self-defense groups are on the rise, the Human Rights Branch of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) said in a September 2024 report. The groups often operate "with the support or approval of police officers," the report said.

In such incidents, victims are mutilated with machetes, stoned, decapitated, burned alive, or buried alive, the report said, also raising concerns about extrajudicial killings by members of the police.

PI/ HaitiLibre