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.<\/p>\n
Gran Grif attacked Petite-Rivi\u00e8re de l\u2019Artibonite 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.<\/p>\n
She told The Associated Press that the gang remained in control of the Jean-Denis neighborhood and set up roadblocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe area is completely deserted,\u201d she said by phone. \u201cOnly the gangs have control.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said her organization has collected at least 30 bodies and was investigating reports of people missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunication is very bad over there,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n
Antonal Mortim\u00e9, a human rights lawyer and co-executive director of the D\u00e9fenseurs Plus human rights group, told Radio Cara\u00efbes that 70 people were believed killed, based on reports from activists on the ground.<\/p>\n
Haiti\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Police in a statement reported at least 16 people killed and 10 others injured by gunfire.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Gangs control an estimated 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and have seized control of swaths of land in Haiti\u2019s central region.<\/p>\n
The United Nations human rights office earlier this year called gangs’ consolidation of control in the capital and neighboring areas \u201cunprecedented,\u201d and said more than 5,500 people were killed in Haiti from March 1, 2025, to Jan. 15.<\/p>\n
Gran Grif, the largest gang operating in the Artibonite region, attacked Petite-Rivi\u00e8re de l\u2019Artibonite nearly a year ago, forcing dozens of people to swim and wade across the country’s longest river to escape.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s recent history.<\/p>\n
Gran Grif was formed after Prophane Victor, a former member of Parliament who represented Petite Rivi\u00e8re, began arming young men in the region, according to a U.N. report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least 30 people were dead and dozens more missing on Monday after a gang renewed its attack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-507154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}