Residents blame Gran Grif gang for attacks in Haiti

‘NO DEFENSE’: Self-defense groups were unable to hold off the gangs due to a lack of firepower, with the gangs waiting for nightfall when police departed to attack

• Reuters, PORT-AU-PRINCE

Armed men mounted further attacks in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region on Tuesday, days after a gang’s weekend assault in the area of Jean-Denis left about 70 people dead, human rights groups and local residents said.

National police said that it was conducting operations in several parts of Artibonite on Tuesday.

Residents of Jean-Denis counted 70 bodies on Sunday morning after an attack by the Gran Grif gang, the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH) said in a report, matching the estimates of the Defense Plus rights group, but far above official estimates, which put the death toll at about 16.

RNDDH said that about 30 people were wounded, including infants, pregnant women, teenagers and an 80-year-old man.

Armed men withdrew from Jean-Denis on Monday, RNDDH said, but on Tuesday they repositioned themselves in nearby Pont Benoit and were attempting to launch another offensive in the town of Marchand Dessalines, about 19km north.

Videos shared on social media showed armed men reportedly belonging to the Kokorat San Ras gang, a close ally of the Gran Grif, distributing cash to residents in Marchand Dessalines.

Gran Grif has been designated a terrorist organization by the US and the Dominican Republic.

Residents told reporters that local self-defense brigades did not have the firepower to hold off the gangs, which would wait during the day when police were present, but begin shooting and setting fire to buildings at night.

RNDDH, whose report followed interviews with local authorities, police and residents, said that Gran Grif’s attack on Jean-Denis followed weeks of threats and residents did not flee because they believed the self-defense brigade would protect them.

However, the brigade withdrew, as it did not have the firepower to hold off the attack, RNDDH said.

The police response was limited, it added, with armored vehicles that reached the scene staying just a few hours before withdrawing and returning on Monday.

Local authorities told the rights group that most of their armored vehicles were out of service, some because of battery issues that required help from mechanics based in Port-au-Prince and that units belonging to the UN-backed security force had to await authorization from the capital before deploying.

Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime on Tuesday met with a UN delegation with whom he discussed the arrival of an expanded mission of a so far only partially deployed security force.

In a report the same day, US-based nonprofit IJDH criticized state and international measures that it said prioritized short-term militarized responses while cutting aid, mass deporting migrants and relying on non-state actors — including a US private military company and the self-defense brigades.

“Haiti’s already catastrophic social and economic landscape has deteriorated further,” it said, adding that neither the prime minister nor the UN-backed deployment “appears set up to transform the dynamics underlying the failures of their predecessors.”