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At least 70 people were killed and 30 injured during an attack in Haiti’s Artibonite region, a human rights group said on Monday, numbers that were significantly higher than official estimates.
The reported toll from human rights collective Défenseurs Plus far exceeded figures provided by authorities earlier.
Police initially reported 16 dead and 10 injured, while a preliminary report from civil protection authorities suggested 17 had died and 19 were wounded.
A spokesperson for the United Nations secretary general told reporters on Monday during a media briefing that he strongly condemned the gang attack where the death toll estimates ranged from 10 to 80 people.
The spokesperson said the violence underscored the gravity of the security situation in the country and urged a thorough investigation.
Thousands fled homes in wake of ‘massacre’: group
The Défenseurs Plus group said the “massacre” had forced nearly 6,000 people to flee their homes.
“The lack of a security response and the abandonment of Artibonite to armed groups demonstrate a complete abdication of responsibility by the authorities,” the group said in a statement.
Armed members of the Gran Grif gang attacked the Jean-Denis area at approximately 3 a.m. local time on Sunday, local civil protection authorities said.
The attack followed UN reports that more than 2,000 people were recently displaced by armed raids in nearby Verrettes, prompting residents in Petite-Riviere to flee their homes.
The Artibonite department, a key agricultural area, has seen some of Haiti’s worst violence as gang conflict spreads beyond the capital, Port-au-Prince.
U.S. reward for info on gangs
In March, the U.S. offered a reward of up to $3 million US for information on the financial activities of the Gran Grif and Viv Ansanm groups. Washington has designated both, which represent coalitions of hundreds of gangs, as terrorist organizations.
Haitian security forces, supported by a UN-backed international mission and a U.S. private military company, have intensified operations against gangs that control most of the capital. However, authorities have yet to arrest a major gang leader.
More than a million people have been displaced by the conflict with gangs, which has exacerbated food insecurity, and close to 20,000 have been reported killed in Haiti since 2021.
The death toll has climbed every year.
