Fourteen alleged bandits were lynched this Monday by a crowd in Canapé-Vert, on the heights of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, a country plunged into a spiral of violence due to a bloody confrontation between armed gangs, local media reported.
The situation occurred after the fourteen men were intercepted by the Police in a public transport bus and intense shooting was heard throughout the night in Canapé-Vert and other surrounding areas.
Through a statement, the National Police reported that, after an alert issued by the Intelligence and Operations Center (CRO), about the presence of armed people in Canapé-Vert, this morning they began to requisition vehicles, in one of the which, a minibus, seized weapons and other materials.
"More than a dozen people who were traveling in this vehicle were unfortunately lynched by members of the population"according to the statement.
Several videos circulating on social networks show people rushing to pour gasoline on the men alive or even dead, while others try to light tires on top of these lying on the ground.
The men reportedly carried weapons and ammunition in suitcases. "set them on fire", "we will kill them one by one"shouts the crowd around the alleged bandits, according to the videos, in which police officers are seen guarding the scene.
Hundreds of families tried to flee the Turgeau area and its surroundings this morning, reportedly besieged by armed gangs who looted homes at night.
In recent times, the security situation has completely deteriorated.
Many previously peaceful areas have been invaded by armed groups seeking new territory, while the Police are powerless to deal with the growing situation.
Almost the entire metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince is under the control of armed gangs, which in one year have grown from 200 to 300, committing abuses day and night, ranging from rape, robbery, kidnapping, armed attacks and massacres.
In the last 5 years, the country has had to face around twenty massacres, which have cost the lives of several hundred people, according to the NGO National Network for the Defense of Human Rights of Haiti (Rnddh), which documents these events. .
Just on Sunday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Haiti (OCHA) reported that fourteen people were killed and forty injured in clashes between rival gangs in the neighborhoods of Cité Soleil, the largest shantytown in Port-au-Prince. , between April 14 and 19.
The socioeconomic and political crisis has intensified in recent months in Haiti, which is suffering from a spiral of violence and the reappearance of cholera, which has already caused nearly 600 deaths in the country since last October. All of this led the Haitian Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, to request the dispatch of a foreign force last year, a request that has yet to receive a concrete response.