Police say 11 inmates killed in shootouts following breakout from prison in central Haiti

Inmates broke out of a prison in the coastal town of Saint-Marc in central Haiti on Friday, police said, as authorities in the country struggle to quell widespread gang violence.

In a news briefing in Port-au-Prince, a spokesman for Haiti's National Police, Michel Ange Louis Jeune, said that eleven suspected escaped inmates were killed in shootouts with police.

He did not provide further details, including how many inmates escaped.

Local media reported that gunfire was heard near the prison in Saint Marc.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many inmates the prison held.

It is the third prison break this year in Haiti. In March, gangs freed thousands of inmates after storming the country’s two biggest prisons in the capital of Port-au-Prince as part of coordinated attacks that led to the eventual resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

The police spokesman also presented one inmate accused of escaping earlier this year who was arrested along with 14 other people, including three police officers, in a separate anti-crime operation Thursday

Haitian prisons are severely overcrowded, and pre-trial detentions can stretch out for years, given the country’s broken judicial system.

There is also a chronic lack of water and food in prisons across Haiti, with inmates dying, from malnutrition-related diseases.

Police also presented various weapons, including assault rifles seized in various operations unrelated to the latest prison break.