Twelve dead and four thousand escapees. This is the result of the assault on Saturday evening against the main penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, by an armed group. “We counted the bodies of many prisoners,” said Pierre Espérance, of the human rights group. Rnddh. According to the operator, only 100 of the approximately 3,800 inmates were still inside the prison after the attack by criminal gangs who control most of the capital. Faced with the situation, the Haitian government declared a state of emergency and a curfew for at least 72 hours in the capital and throughout the west of the country, he wrote. Afp. The capital also experienced the first internet interruptions due to damage to fiber optic cables caused by the clashes. In one neighborhood, barricades with burning tires were erected. According to some local media, a second prison was also overrun, with around 1,400 inmates inside. The country's main football stadium was also occupied and looted by armed men, who also held an employee hostage for hours, the Haitian Football Federation said.
The unprecedented escalation
At the time of the attack, police officials urged officers to respond with weapons to the spread of fleeing gangsters, because if the attack succeeds, “it's over.” And no one, the agents emphasize, “will be spared in the capital because there will be 3,000 additional bandits in the surrounding area.” Criminal gangs have been raging since last Thursday, when caretaker Prime Minister Ariel Henry flew to Kenya to negotiate sending a multinational force led by Kenyan soldiers to the island to fight criminal gangs. In addition to two penitentiaries, gangsters attacked police stations and the international airport and blocked the port's main cargo yard. An unprecedented escalation, underlines the CNN, culminating Friday with a message from the group's leader, Jimmy Cherizier, known as Barbecue, who called on police to arrest Haiti's interim Prime Minister, Ariel Henry. “We reiterate that the population is not our enemy, armed groups are not your enemy. Arrest Ariel Henry for the liberation of the country,” Chérizier said, adding that “with these weapons we will liberate the country.”
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