Port-au-Prince.- The massacre with dozens of dead perpetrated early this Monday by armed gangs in a town east of Port-au-Prince has caused outrage in Haiti, while calls for the authorities to act against the groups that keep the population terrorized are growing.
Attack in Kenscoff and casualty toll
The attack occurred in the Kenscoff commune, where EFE was able to confirm at least twenty bodies in the area it had access to, while local media put the death toll at forty.
The Office of Citizen Protection (OPC), a public institution for the defense of human rights, expressed its “profound” dismay at the massacre and condemned “in the strongest terms” the events, in which, as it indicated, “several dozen people” were murdered, including numerous young people.
Read more: Haiti: at least 20 dead in new attack that alerts security forces
Pressure on Haitian authorities
The OPC requested the Superior Council of the National Police (CSPN) and the competent authorities to adopt urgent measures to restore, in a lasting manner, security in Kenscoff, protect the population, and clarify the crimes.
According to local media, among the victims are women, children and young people. The gangs also attacked displaced people who had taken refuge in a church and set dozens of homes on fire.
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The violence also sparked protests this Monday, when hundreds of residents gathered in front of the Kenscoff police station to denounce the situation of insecurity and demand a response from law enforcement.
The protesters questioned state management and denounced the lack of concrete measures to curb the violence that has been affecting the commune for more than 20 months.
The Director General of the Haitian National Police (PNH), Jonas André Vladimir Paraison, and the Government Commissioner to the Court of First Instance of Port-au-Prince, Fritz Patterson Dorval, traveled this Monday to Kenscoff following the attack.
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Provisional former president Jocelerme Privert also condemned the attack and expressed his solidarity with the victims’ families and the inhabitants of Kenscoff.
“Faced with this spiral of violence, we cannot get used to the horror nor remain indifferent,” stated Privert in a message posted on Facebook, in which he demanded that the State fully assume its responsibility to protect the population.
The gangs, integrated into the armed coalition Viv Ansanm, seek to consolidate their presence in Kenscoff, a strategic area due to its proximity to the Southeast department and the city of Jacmel, which until now has remained relatively on the sidelines of the violence affecting much of the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince.
After the attacks, armed groups usually retreat towards neighborhoods bordering Kenscoff, including Carrefour, areas where the State’s presence is very limited.
According to UN data, violence in Haiti caused at least 2,310 deaths and 1,106 injuries in the first five months of the year.
At least 99 kidnappings were also perpetrated; 699 people, especially women and girls, were victims of sexual violence and hundreds of minors remain in the hands of human trafficking networks.
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Added to this is the fact that some 5.8 million Haitians, approximately 52% of the population, suffer from food insecurity (in category 3 out of 5), while the number of displaced people reached 1.4 million last year, an unprecedented level, according to data from international organizations.
