Haiti: Powerful gang coalition has been using violence to terrorize the population

The battle for control of Haiti’s volatile capital took another deadly turn on Tuesday as members of a powerful gang coalition that has been using violence to terrorize the population and gain power targeted a densely populated neighborhood in the northeast section of Port-au-Prince. Members of the Viv Ansanm coalition killed at least 15 people, including a meat vendor who was burned alive in front of his child, residents said. In another instance, an entire family, with the exception of one person who survived by hiding underneath a bed, was slaughtered. A Haitian police spokesman did not respond to a call from the Miami Herald to confirm the deaths.

But at least one corpse made it out of Delmas 30. The dead man, shot by gang members, was being wheeled away in a wheelbarrow down the street by his brother and a friend. The brother said he had called both an ambulance and a morgue for help in transporting the body. Neither would come. The fresh attacks against Delmas 30, which serves as a shortcut to two other strategically placed working-class neighborhoods in metropolitan Port-au-Prince, started around 1 a.m. Sunday. Since then, residents have been on the run under a hail of bullets as gangs blanketed the slum with automatic gunfire and torched homes. By Tuesday, hundreds of residents, including those living in a displacement camp, could be seen running down the main Delmas road, balancing on their heads what they could not carry in their hands: mattresses, wooden bed frames, dining room chairs, even a baby’s crib.

Gang members apparently gained access to the slum via a gully that runs parallel to the Auto Route of Delmas, the main thoroughfare.

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