Nearly 90 killed in gang violence in Haiti

Haiti is shaken by another spiral of violence. In the past week, around 90 people have been killed in gang deals, while protests are raging against fuel shortages and rising food prices.

A week of violent clashes between two rival gangs in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince has killed at least 89 people, according to the human rights organization RNDDH, which monitors human rights in the country. Another 74 people are said to have been shot or stabbed and 16 are missing.

– It’s a battlefield. It is impossible to estimate how many people have been killed, says Mumuza Muhindo, head of Médecins Sans Frontières’ local office.

The violence broke out on July 7 in the Cité Soleil, a very poor and densely populated suburb of Port-au-Prince.

Muhindo says his colleagues have seen burnt and rotting corpses along a road leading to the worst-hit part of the Cité Soleil, and he appeals to the fighters to give paramedics free passage to the area.

At the same time, there are protests against fuel shortages and rising food prices elsewhere in the city, which contributes to an increasingly difficult security situation. Pictures show how protesters on Thursday barricaded a road and blocked it with burning car tires.

As a consequence of the violence, international aid organizations say that it is difficult to reach them with, among other things, necessary food deliveries.

The past week’s violence is similar to the gang fights that took place over a couple of weeks in April-May this year, when around 150 people were killed in Port-au-Prince, including women and children.

“Most of the murdered women and girls had been raped before they were killed,” RNDDH said at the time.