A massacre in Kenscoff, a farming community in the hills above Haiti's capital, killed at least 47 people and wounded 22 on Sunday and Monday, according to news reports. The attack marked one of the deadliest recent incidents in an area that had been relatively peaceful until armed groups began expanding their reach beyond Port-au-Prince.
A UN report released Tuesday documented how gang violence is spreading across Haiti even as security operations against gangs intensify in the capital. From April through June, at least 1,408 people were killed and 656 injured, according to the UN Integrated Office in Haiti, known by its French acronym BINUH. That figure represented about 14 per cent fewer casualties than in the first quarter, though the decline masked different patterns across regions. More than half of the casualties were attributed to gangs, about 40 per cent occurred during security operations against them, and 5 per cent were linked to self-defense groups and vigilantes.
Security operations have constrained gang activity in parts of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, including Delmas and Tabarre. But the pressure has displaced violence rather than suppressed it, with rival gangs fighting extraordinarily violent battles in the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac and Cité Soleil over territory and illicit revenue. Those clashes killed 463 people during the quarter, while hundreds more were wounded or raped, and more than 18,000 residents fled their homes.
Outside the capital, gangs have pushed into new territory. Armed groups attacked communities in the Artibonite, Haiti's major agricultural region, killing residents in their homes and farmers in their fields. The Village de Dieu gang carried out raids around Séguin, an area previously spared such violence, in what BINUH said could reflect an attempt to control roads leading to the port of Marigot and establish new sources of revenue.
Kenscoff has endured a dozen gang attacks since last year, according to the UN. The UN documented at least 796 victims of gang-related rape during the second quarter, with most cases involving multiple perpetrators. In contested areas, rape has been used to terrorize residents, with women beaten and assaulted sometimes in front of their children because they lived in territory controlled by rival gangs.
More than 800 people were killed or injured during security-force operations in the quarter, with at least 95 of those casualties being civilians unaffiliated with gangs, the report noted. Haitian authorities deployed explosive drones operated by a government task force composed of police officers and members of a foreign private military company. BINUH said nine civilians, including six children, were killed or wounded in drone operations, and it had received no information that authorities had opened investigations into casualties from security operations.
By May, nearly 1.47 million people were internally displaced across Haiti, more than half of them children. Carlos Ruiz Massieu, head of BINUH, said in a statement that the figures "show that the population continues to bear an unacceptable toll from violence."
