Vigilante mob burns gang members alive in the streets of Haiti
A mob of murderous vigilantes fatally beat and burned 13 suspected gang members Monday in Haiti’s lawless capital city, which has been mostly controlled by criminals since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
The men were stoned and lit on fire with gasoline-soaked tires in the Canape Vert section of Port-au-Prince after they were pulled from police custody by the mob during a traffic stop.
Witnesses said the attack came as the purported gangsters were en route to back up their associates in a firefight with police.
Cops had pulled over a minibus and confiscated weapons from the suspects before they were “unfortunately lynched by members of the population,” the Haiti National Police said in a short statement that did not explain how the mob was able to circumvent law enforcement to conduct the brutal bloodshed.
A witness named Edner Samuel said after the mob beat the purported gang members into submission, they put tires on top of them, doused them in gasoline, and lit them on fire.
An Associated Press reporter witnessed the 13 bodies burning in the street.
Samuel said the gang suspects had been en route to join other members of their criminal enterprise who were battling police in the nearby neighborhood of Turgeau, where gunshots had been heard ringing out all morning, according to witness Jean Josue.
Six additional burned bodies were found by the AP reporter laid out on the streets of Turgeau.
Some witnesses said they had been killed by cops and set on fire, but the news agency could not confirm their cause of death.
The stench of death and rising smoke from the horrific public cremations filled the area and prompted hundreds of onlookers to plug their noses.
The desperate scene highlighted the growing anarchy in Port-au-Prince since Moïse’s assassination, which left a political vacuum in the island nation considered the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.
An estimated 60% of the city of 1 million residents is controlled by criminals. Canape Vert, a hilly suburban enclave, had thus far avoided falling under gang control.
The gang suspects who were slain Monday were linked to the Kraze Barye gang, according to witnesses.
That organization is led by Vitel’Homme Innocent, who is linked to Moïse’s murder and also accused of helping to kidnap 17 US missionaries in 2021.
US officials have arrested at least 11 suspects in South Florida in connection with the assassination, which was allegedly carried out by dozens of Colombian mercenaries who stormed Moïse’s presidential compound in the middle of the night.
A 2021 New York Times investigation found that Moïse had been compiling a list of powerful Haitian businessmen and political figures connected to a drug trafficking network in the months before he was killed.
“I applaud the considerable and meritorious efforts of the National Police to restore order and peace in our cities and neighborhoods,” Prime Minster Ariel Henry tweeted in French Monday night. “There is still a lot to do.”
With Post wires
