2023-04-27 21:53:06
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Gang crime in Haiti Suspects stoned and burned alive
Horrified residents at the sight of the bodies of suspected gang members set on fire by a mob in Port-au-Prince.
(Foto: picture alliance/dpa/AP)
Armed gangs are fighting for control of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. According to the police, suspected gang members have now been “lynched” by residents there. A UN report compares the security situation in the city with that in a country at war.
More than a dozen suspected gang members have been stoned or burned alive in Haiti. The armed men traveling in a minibus were “unfortunately lynched by parts of the population” after a police check on Monday in Port-au-Prince, the police said. The United Nations warned that the security situation in the Haitian capital is becoming more like that of a war-torn country.
The police stopped a minibus with armed men on Monday and confiscated weapons, cartridges and mobile phones, as announced on Facebook. The men were killed by residents of the Canapé-Vert neighborhood where the bus was stopped. Burned corpses were seen lying on the streets in photographs. According to eyewitnesses, other suspected gang members were stoned. The violence began before dawn when gang members broke into several residential areas of the capital, robbing houses and attacking residents, according to eyewitnesses. AFP journalists reported on families fleeing the affected neighborhoods.
Residents no longer leave their houses out of fear
The United Nations, meanwhile, released a report highlighting the increase in killings and kidnappings in Haiti. Armed gangs continue to compete to “extend their territorial control in the greater Port-au-Prince area”. The violence is spreading to previously unaffected neighborhoods, it said. With high death tolls and an increasing number of neighborhoods under the control of armed gangs, “insecurity in the capital has reached levels comparable to countries in armed conflict,” the report warns.
The number of homicides in Haiti rose 21 percent in the past few months to 815 in the first quarter of the year. The number of kidnappings rose by 63 percent to 637 in the same period. UN Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated the “urgent need to send an international special force” to Haiti.
The report also refers to the situation of residents of the Cité Soleil slum in the port area. There, snipers recently shot dead pedestrians on the street from roofs. “Residents feel besieged. They can no longer leave their homes for fear of armed violence and terror perpetrated by the gangs,” said the UN Emergency Relief Coordination Office for Haiti.
Those: ntv.de
lar/AFP/dpa
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