Gang raid kills at least 20 people in Haiti

Gang members attacked a small town in central Haiti early Thursday, killing more than 20 people, including children, according to a human rights group.

Another 50 were injured as the Grand Grif gang burned homes and cars in the town of Pont-Sondé, said Bertide Harace, spokeswoman for the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation and Awareness to Save the Artibonite.

Hundreds of people ran on foot and on motorcycles, fleeing the area near and around the hospital in Saint Marc, where the injured were taken after rumours spread that the gang was heading there.

The attack in Pont-Sonde, a town in Saint-Marc, was blamed on the Grand Grif gang.

It operates in the central Artibonite region, and experts have described it as one of Haiti’s cruelest gangs.

Later in the day, Venson Françoisa, government prosecutor, said that the police were already in place and that the situation was under control.

However, he cautioned people that there “could be more attacks.”

While most of the gang violence is concentrated in the capital of Port-au-Prince, it has spread in recent years to the Artibonite region.