- Human rights group says 70 dead, officials say 16.
- The rights group estimates that 6,000 people have been displaced by violence.
- The UN Secretary-General’s office is calling for a thorough investigation.
At least 70 people were killed and 30 wounded in an attack near Petite-Rivière in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region, a human rights group said Monday, far higher than official estimates, which put the death toll at about 16.
Residents and officials told local media that the attack began in the early hours of Sunday in the rural areas around Jean-Denis and continued into the early hours of Monday, when gang members stormed the area and set fire to houses.
The rights group Defenseurs Plus said it estimated the violence had displaced 6,000 people. The UN estimates that more than 2,000 people left their homes in the days following raids by armed gangs nearby.
Police initially reported 16 dead and 10 injured, while a preliminary report by civil protection authorities said 17 were dead and 19 were injured, mostly men.
A spokesman for the UN secretary-general told a press briefing that the organization’s office in Haiti, BINUH, was closely monitoring the events and that estimates ranged from 10 to 80 people killed. He called for a thorough investigation.
“The lack of a security response and the handing over of Artibonite to armed groups shows a complete abdication of responsibility on the part of the authorities,” Defenseurs Plus said in a joint statement with the Collective to Save the Artibonite.
An audio message circulated on social media was attributed to Gran Grif leader Luckson Elan. In the message, Elan appears to say the attack was in retaliation for attacks on their base in Savien by a rival armed group.
The Artibonite department, an important agricultural area, has seen some of Haiti’s worst violence. The gang conflict has spread beyond the capital, Port-au-Prince, despite more aggressive policing and promises of more foreign aid to Haiti’s security forces.
Continuous operation
Haiti’s national police said they deployed three armored vehicles, which were slowed by holes dug in the road by gang members. Officials said the armed group fled the area when police arrived and several houses had already been burnt down.
The injured were then taken to a local hospital and the deceased to two morgues, the police said, adding that they have launched an operation to trace the gang members who escaped.
Defenseurs Plus estimated that 50 houses were burnt down.
Close to 20,000 people have been killed in Haiti since 2021, according to a recent UN report, with the death toll rising each year as increasingly independent and powerful armed gangs clash with security forces and local vigilante groups.
Gran Grif and Viv Ansanm, which group hundreds of gangs in the capital, have been designated as terrorist organizations by Washington. The groups have been accused of mass murder, gang rape, arson, theft and trafficking in weapons, drugs and organs.
This month, the United States offered a reward of up to $3 million for information about their financial activities.
This weekend’s attack marks the latest in a series of massacres in the area, mainly attributed to Gran Grif. In October 2024, a Gran Grif attack on the nearby town of Pont-Sonde left 115 dead as gunmen shot residents door to door.
More than 1.4 million people – about 12% of the Caribbean’s most populous nation – have been displaced by the conflict with armed gangs, exacerbating an economic crisis and access to food.
