Gangs launch large-scale attack in Haiti’s central region as hundreds flee gunfire and burning homes

SAINT-MARC, Haiti (AP) – Heavily armed gangs attacked Haiti’s central region over the weekend, killing men, women and children as they set fire to homes and forced survivors to flee into the darkness.

Police made emergency calls for backup, asserting that 50% of the Artibonite region had fallen under gang control after the large-scale attacks targeting towns including Bercy and Pont-Sondé.

“The population cannot live, cannot work, cannot move,” one of Haiti’s police unions, SPNH-17, said Sunday on X. “Losing the country’s 2 largest departments – West and Artibonite – is the greatest security failure in modern Haitian history.”

The bulk of Haiti’s police force and the Kenyan officers leading a U.N.-backed mission to help repel gangs are in the capital, Port-au-Prince, which itself is largely held by gangs.

Guerby Simeus, a Pont-Sondé official, told The Associated Press by phone on Monday that he had confirmed nearly a dozen deaths, including a mother and her child and a local government employee.

“The gangs are still in Pont-Sondé,” he said, noting that no additional police had arrived.

Many survivors fled to the coastal town of Saint-Marc, where hundreds of angry people on Monday demanded that the government take action against gangs who have repeatedly attacked Haiti’s central region.

“Give me the guns! I’m going to fight the gangs!” said Réné Charles, who survived the attack. “We’ve got to stand up and fight!”

The crowd tried to break into the mayor’s office with one unidentified man telling the AP that they weren’t going to rely on the government any longer: “We’re going to take justice into our own hands!”

Charlesma Jean Marcos, a political activist, said the gang announced last week that they were going to invade the area, and that they alerted authorities to no avail.

“For now, the only people really fighting (the gang) is the self-defense group,” he said. “A country cannot run like this.”

Marcos urged all the survivors sleeping on the street and in public parks to instead sleep inside police stations and government offices until the government can take back Artibonite.

“A lot of people are going to be hungry,” he warned. “We can support you today, we can support you tomorrow, but we won’t be able to support you forever.”

More than half of Haiti’s population is already experiencing crisis levels of hunger or worse, with gangs blocking main roads and the ongoing violence displacing a record 1.4 million people.

The attacks in central Haiti began late Friday and late Saturday, with gang members broadcasting them live on social media.

The attacks were blamed on the Gran Grif gang, which operates in the area and was responsible for an attack on Pont-Sondé in October 2024 that killed at least 100 people, one of the biggest massacres in Haiti’s recent history.

“I heard heavy shooting, so much shooting,” one unidentified man recalled to The Associated Press and criticized the lack of police, saying he was stuck inside his house all weekend until Monday morning. “Why don’t they send any drones to Artibonite? They just use the drones in Port-au-Prince. I feel this gang is special. They don’t want to destroy this gang.”

A spokesperson for Haiti’s National Police did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Gran Grif is considered one of Haiti’s cruelest gangs. Its leader, Luckson Elan, recently was sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. government. Also sanctioned was Prophane Victor, a former legislator that the U.N. accused of arming young men in the Artibonite region.

The U.N. has said killings have risen dramatically in Haiti’s Artibonite and Centre departments this year, with 1,303 victims reported from January to August, compared with 419 during the same period in 2024.

“These assaults underscore the capacity of gangs to consolidate control across a corridor from the Centre to the Artibonite amid limited law enforcement presence and logistical constraints,” a recent U.N. report stated.

Fritz Alphonse Jean, a member of Haiti’s transitional presidential council who was sanctioned by the U.S. last month and is seeking to oust the current prime minister, condemned the latest attacks.

“Blood continues to flow, lives and property continues to be lost in front of a government incapable of addressing the population’s problems for more than a year,” he wrote on X, adding: “Stability???!”

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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico and Sanon from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.