PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: At least a dozen people killed as gang members attacked the main jail in Haiti’s capital, causing a breakout by several thousand of prisoners.
Pierre Esperance of the National Network for Defense of Human Rights, said around 100 of the National Penitentiary’s 3,800 inmates were still inside the prison after the gang attacked overnight Saturday.
Haiti has been fighting poverty, violence, political instability and recurring natural disasters for decades but the country plunged further into chaos with the killing of president Jovenel Moise in 2021.
Powerful, well-armed gangs much of the capital Port-au-Prince.
According to western media around a dozen bodies were outside the prison and some had bullet wounds or other projectiles.
The Haitian government in a statement, said police tried to repulse the gang attack against that prison and at another facility Croix des Bouquets. It said these attacks left several injured among the prison staff and inmates.
Esperance said it was not clear immediately how many prisoners escaped from the second prison.
Gangs aiming to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry have caused havoc in Port-au-Prince since Thursday.
Prime Minister Henry was in Kenya on Friday trying to gather support for an international police support mission, which Nairobi has agreed to head.
