PORT-AU-PRINCE (AP) — Gang members attacked a small town in central Haiti early Thursday, killing more than 20 people, including children, according to a human rights group.
Another 50 people were injured as the Gran Grif gang burned homes and cars in the town of Pont-Sondé, said Bertide Harace, spokeswoman for the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation and Awareness to Save the Artibonite.
“A lot of people ran and left the area,” she told Radio Kiskeya.
A video posted on social media shows a group of people fleeing through the brush, with one woman who was out of breath saying, “Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go.” In another video, dozens of people start running through a street after hearing rumors that the gang was approaching.
Harace and others criticized police in the nearby coastal city of Saint-Marc, saying they did not mobilize to help people being attacked in Pont-Sondé.
Venson François, a government prosecutor based in Saint-Marc, called the attack a “massacre” in an interview with Radio Caraïbes.
Dozens of people crowded around a hospital in Saint-Marc where the injured were taken, with one man telling reporters that local authorities are not doing enough to protect people.
The attack in Pont-Sondé was blamed on the Gran Grif gang. It operates in the central Artibonite region, and experts have described it as one of Haiti’s cruelest gangs. It has gained control of more territory since 2022 under the leadership of Luckson Elan, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department last month.
In January 2023, the Gran Grif gang was accused of attacking a police station in Liancourt, located near Pont-Sondé, and killing at least six officers. Violence unleashed by the gang also forced the closure of a hospital in February 2023 that serves more than 700,000 people.
Former Haitian legislator Prophane Victor, who represented the Artibonite department, began arming young men who eventually formed the Gran Grif gang to secure his election and control over the area, according to a U.N. report. The U.S. also sanctioned Victor last month.
The gang has about 100 members and has been accused of crimes including murder, rape, robberies and kidnappings, according to the report.
While most of the gang violence is concentrated in the capital of Port-au-Prince, it has spread in recent years to the Artibonite region, where much of Haiti’s food is produced.