According to authorities, a crowd murdered more than a dozen persons on Monday in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, who were allegedly gang members.
Crowds were assembling nearby as victims were seen on video from Reuters and AFP with tires encircling them and in flames. According to locals who spoke to Reuters and AFP on video, the victims were members of gangs.
“It was 3:00am in the morning. Gangs broke into our area. Numerous gunshots were heard. All of the locals in the vicinity are calm citizens, and this neighborhood is no exception, a local told AFP.
Before the killing, Haitian National Police had stopped and searched the victims in a minibus in the neighborhood of Canape-Vert, seizing weapons and other equipment, according to a statement from the Haitian National Police.
“More than a dozen individuals riding on board this vehicle were unfortunately lynched by members of the population,” the statement said.
“If the gangs come to invade us, we will defend ourselves, we have our own weapons, we have our machetes, we will take their weapons, we will not run away,” a 15-year-old Haitian resident told AFP.
“We don’t ask for a lot. The gang members have invaded the area. We want the police to go ahead and confront them. We’re on our own. We have nothing,” said another. The resident added that suspected gangmembers had “invaded” the neighborhood early Monday morning around 2am.
In a tweet, Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry applauded the Haitian police on Monday for recent operations toward restoring “order and peace in our cities and neighborhoods.”
“Together, we will solve the problems related to security to move forward,” Henry wrote
Gangs control wide swathes of Port-Au-Prince, plaguing residents with extreme violence as Haitians also grapple with extreme poverty and a humanitarian crisis.