‘Wanton, intentional infliction of incredible pain’ by gangs in Haiti

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Gangs in Haiti continue to terrorise communities with the “wanton, intentional infliction of incredible pain” on people who often are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That’s according to the Designated Human Rights Expert for Haiti, William O’Neill, who spoke to UN News ahead of the release of a new report which reveals that at least 613 people were killed and another 375 were injured in just two neighbourhoods of the capital, Port-au-Prince, during a 4.5-month period up to 31 July.

More than one-third of the victims were individuals not associated with gangs, including 111 women and 77 children.

Gangs control most of Port-au-Prince and some of the surrounding areas. 

More than 176 women and girls were victims of rape committed by gang members, “often as a form of punishment against people living in areas controlled by rival gangs,” the report said.  

More than 18,000 people were also forced to flee their homes.

A number of individual cases have been highlighted by UN human rights monitors in the report, published by the UN’s political office in Haiti, known by its French acronym, BINUH.

Murders continue

• Two 17-year-old boys were shot dead by a gang leader after being accused of passing information to a rival gang.
• A 71-year-old man was shot dead by the leader of a gang after approaching him to ask for food.
• A woman was stopped by gang members who harassed her with questions about why she was there. According to witnesses, she was paralyzed with fear and unable to answer. She was accused of being an informant for a rival gang and was executed on the spot.
• 17 boys aged 15 to 17 were executed together by gang members who suspected them of working for a rival gang. Some were taken to and shot at a trash site. 
• Shortly after the World Cup football match between Haiti and Scotland on June 13, a crowd of 300 people including a musical group walked to a neighbourhood where they were attacked by a gang, some of whom were positioned on rooftops. At least 61 people were killed and another 20 were injured. The victims included at least seven children, the youngest of whom was barely seven years old. 

Rape horror

• Five masked men struck a mother of three at her home with the butts of their guns before gang-raping her in front of her children.
• A woman was raped by a group of armed men after they had set fire to her home, killing her husband and her young daughter, who was barely two years old. She was raped in front of her 10-year-old son.
• Other survivors reported being intercepted in the street while returning home and then taken to wooded areas, where they were raped.