Police pledged Wednesday to crack down on unrelenting gang violence that has paralyzed swaths of Haiti's capital, and pleaded with Haitians to end a string of grisly vigilante killings.
The appeal came after an angry crowd on Monday killed at least 13 suspected gang members who police had arrested, with video and pictures shared on social media suggesting that an even greater number since then have died after being stoned and set on fire.
“If anyone hears anything, please advise the police,” Garry Desrosiers, spokesman for Haiti’s National Police, said at a news conference. “Do not take justice into your own hands.”
Desrosiers said police are mobilized and that anti-gang operations will continue as he urged people to contact police if they see unusual activity or people they don’t recognize in their neighborhoods.
He told The Associated Press that “a lot” of victims were killed this week but declined to provide specifics.
The vigilante violence Monday took place in the Canape Vert neighborhood of Port-au-Prince after police stopped and searched a minibus for contraband and confiscated weapons from suspects who were face down on the pavement when they were lynched.
Desrosiers said a limited number of police were on the scene when it happened: “They couldn’t sustain the crowd, and the crowd reacted.”
Six other suspected gang members in the nearby neighborhood of Turgeau who allegedly were shot by police were also set on fire Monday.
The gang violence in recent days has injured three police officers and prompted people in Canape Vert and Turgeau to arm themselves with machetes, rocks and bottles to defend their neighborhoods as they set up makeshift checkpoints and blocked entrances with large trucks.
Desrosiers said he understands people’s anger and frustration over ongoing gang violence.
“They’ve been victimized. They’ve been suffering. The young women are being raped. Professionals are being kidnapped. That is not acceptable,” he said as he also condemned vigilante violence.
The United Nations estimates that gangs now control 80% of Port-au-Prince as lawlessness has escalated since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
On Wednesday, the new U.N. special envoy for Haiti called for the immediate deployment of a specialized international force that Prime Minister Ariel Henry first requested in October, echoing a similar plea from U.N. Secretary General António Guterres.
“Gang violence is expanding at an alarming rate in areas previously considered relatively safe in Port-au-Prince and outside the capital,” said special envoy María Isabel Salvador. “The Haitian people cannot wait. We need to act now.”
But the U.N. Security Council has shown no interest in deploying a foreign force, and neither have the U.S. or Canada.
Salvador said that in the first quarter of 2022, more than 690 criminal incidents that include killings, rapes, kidnappings and lynchings were reported. That number more than doubled to 1,647 in the same period this year, she said.
Salvador also noted that Haiti’s National Police is severely understaffed: “Barely 3,500 police officers are on public safety duty at any given time, nationwide.”
More than 11 million people live in Haiti, where an estimated seven major gang coalitions and some 200 affiliated groups operate.
