A rights group claims that at least 70 people were slain in the Haitian massacre, significantly more than the official death toll.
A human rights organization said on Monday that at least 70 people were murdered and 30 injured in an attack at Petite-Riviere in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite area. This number is much higher than official estimates, which put the death toll at about 16.
Local media were informed by residents and officials that gang members stormed the region and set homes on fire during the attack, which started in the early hours of Sunday in the rural communities surrounding Jean-Denis and continued into the early hours of Monday.
The rights organization Defenseurs Plus said that the violence had forced 6,000 people to flee their homes. According to UN estimates, armed gang raids in the area caused over 2,000 people to flee their homes in the days before.
A preliminary assessment from civil protection officials stated that 17 people, largely men, had died and 19 had been injured. Police had earlier reported 16 dead and 10 injured.
At a news conference, a representative for the UN Secretary-General stated that BINUH, the organization’s office in Haiti, was keeping a careful eye on the situation and that estimates of the number of fatalities ranged from 10 to 80. He demanded a comprehensive probe.In a joint statement with the Collective to Save the Artibonite, Defenseurs Plus stated, “The authorities’ total abdication of responsibility is demonstrated by the lack of a security response and the abandonment of Artibonite to armed groups.”
Gran Grif leader Luckson Elan was credited with an audio message that went viral on social media. Elan seems to be saying in the communication that the attack was in response to an armed competitor gang attacking their stronghold in Savien.
Some of the worst violence in Haiti has occurred in the important agricultural region of the Artibonite department. Despite promises of increased foreign help for Haiti’s security services and more active policing, gang conflict has spread outside the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
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Three armored vehicles were deployed, according to Haiti’s National Police, but they were slowed down by holes that gang members had dug in the route. Several homes had already burned down before police arrived, according to officials, and the armed group was escaping the area.
The dead were then transferred to two morgues and the injured to a nearby hospital, according to police, who also stated that they had started an effort to find the gang members who escaped.
An estimated fifty homes were destroyed by fire, according to Defenseurs Plus.
According to a recent UN estimate, since 2021, about 20,000 people have died in Haiti; the death toll has been rising annually as more powerful and independent armed gangs have clashed with local vigilante groups and security authorities.
Washington has classified Gran Grif and Viv Ansanm, which unite hundreds of gangs in the city, as terrorist organizations. The organizations have been charged with mass murders, gang rapes, arson, theft, and trafficking in firearms, drugs, and organs.
The United States announced a prize of up to $3 million for financial activity information this month.
The attack over the weekend is the most recent in a string of local massacres that are mostly ascribed to Gran Grif. 115 people were killed in a Gran Grif attack on the neighboring town of Pont-Sonde in October 2024, when armed men opened fire on locals house to door.
The fighting between armed gangs has forced almost 1.4 million people—roughly 12% of the most populated country in the Caribbean—to flee their homes, exacerbating a food shortage and economic crises.