Members of the prominent group coalition Viv Ansanm stormed a jail in Haiti on Monday, releasing more than 500 inmates after setting fire to a police station during a time of worry in the northern region of the country that sent residents, patients and staff at one of the biggest hospitals fleeing.
Haiti National Police official Lionel Lazarre, who confirmed the harm to the Miami Herald, said groups began their assault on Sunday evening in Mirebalais, a remote village not far from Haiti’s borders with the Dominican Republic.
” They burned part of the police station and some disabled vehicles in the police stop garden”, he said. ” All of the detainees leave”.
Videos shared on social media showed worried people running through the roads, carrying things on their faces. Some were wading through a valley to get away from the gunshots.
The goal of the groups ‘ invasion appears to have been the jail, which housed 516 residents, according to the Port-au-Prince based animal rights team Fondasyon Je Klere/Eyes Wide Open Foundation.
Of the individuals, just 65 had been before a judge and sentenced. The rest, including 27 people, 410 people and 14 youths, were in pretrial detention, meaning they had not yet been before a judge.
Marie Yolene Gilles, mind of the base, said the military gang members traveled along the major National Highway and arrived in the city without resistance.
” They attacked the police station, they penetrated the jail, they burned houses, they burned the businesses of people in the city of Mirebalais” she said.
After the assault on the prison, she said,” they freed captives and set flames” to it.
Gilles said that, as in other cases, armed criminals had announced that they would strike Mirebalais and” there was no opposition, there was no answer”.
The assault on the Mirebalais jail followed the same pattern as the attacks a year ago against the National Penitentiary in the investment and the Croix-des-Bouquet Civil jail on its fringes. More than 4, 000 individuals, including crew members, were freed after legal organizations stormed both features, Haiti’s two largest jails.
” The same trend was repeated and nothing was done to prevent it”, Giles said.
Her base” continues to inquire where the country’s wealth for cleverness is going”, Gilles said. ” The bandits usually announce their assaults against the cities, against the prison, against the authorities stations and they never have any weight. Why didn’t ( the police ) take steps to counter the attacks against Mirebalais? Because people knew”.
Frédérique Occéan, a political appointment for the place, said in a media conference that regional officials had worked to keep the harm from happening without achievement.
” We are working to limit the destruction”, he said. ” The population needs to remain calm, they need to stay home and they should not flee the city. You have to stay and support the security forces, so we can stand and fight together”.
He said for weeks local leaders had been asking for armored vehicles to be deployed to the city to reinforce the security forces in the area. ” Up until now, we have not yet received any armored vehicles”, he said. ” We have a lot of political will to fight, but we need the means to fight”.
He blamed the attack on ongoing efforts in the region to stop the illegal trafficking of arms across the border. Tensions increased after a police operation on Sunday in the border town of Belladère led to several arrests, he said. ” After those arrests, after the weapons were seized, after the vehicles that were confiscated … the threats grew, the guys today went to the prison and broke the prison and freed everyone”.
When gangs stormed the town residents didn’t know where to go. At the University Hospital of Mirebalais, built by the late Dr. Paul Farmer after the devastating 2010 earthquake, some patients and staff fled while others tried to hide.
Reports initially suggested that the hospital was under attack, but as of 11: 30 a. m., the administration said it was a false alarm.
The privately built hospital is run by Boston-based Partners In Health and its Haiti affiliate, Zanmi Lasante. It is one of the few facilities in Haiti that provides cutting-edge treatment for cancer, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.
Mirebalais is among several cities in Haiti’s Central Plateau, which has become a refuge for those fleeing the violence in Port-au-Prince, where more than 1 million Haitians have been displaced, 60, 000 just in the past month. The city is not far from the Haiti-Dominican border, which has become a focal point of illegal arms trafficking and a conduit for gangs to receive high-caliber guns and ammunition.
Lazarre said several specialized Haitian police units were flown into the city on a helicopter to battle gang members.
As of 1 p. m., he told the Herald, the city was” for the moment under the control” of the police.
” Police are carrying out operations in areas where the gang members are located”, he said.
Lazarre said police had killed, wounded and arrested several gang members but did not provide numbers. Weapons were also seized, he said.
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