8 children killed in a drone attack in a Haitian district controlled by a gang
Explosive drones targeting an alleged gang leader killed at least eight children in a slum in the capital of Haiti and seriously injured six others, the Associated Press told the police on Monday.
The explosions took place on Saturday evening in Cité Soleil, which is controlled by VIV Ansanm, a powerful coalition of gangs that the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
One of his leaders, Jimmy Chérizier, whose nickname is a barbecue, has promised to avenge the attacks, with a total of at least 13 people killed, according to the residents.
“It’s my daughter,” said Claudia Bobrun, 30, when she showed the Associated Press a video of her eight -year -old daughter lying in a blood pond.
Tears flowed on her face as she replayed the video.
Michelin Florville, 60, said that the explosion had killed two of his grandchildren, aged 3 and 7 and his 32-year-old son.
“People were running right and left,” he recalls, noting that he was standing near where an explosion occurred.
“I prayed for him every day”: mother of the victim
Meanwhile, Nanouse Mertelia, 37, said that she was inside her house on Saturday evening and ran to see what happened after hearing an explosion. Her son had left their house several minutes earlier to eat something.
She found him on the ground, her leg and her arm blown.
“Come and get me, come and get me, please mom,” she said, but he had lost too much blood. “As we arrived at the hospital, he died.”
Canadian ambassador to Haiti, André François Giroux, discusses the growing violence of gangs in the Caribbean nation and Canada’s role to help restore stability.
Haiti’s national human rights network has accused the police of launching two explosive drones in the Simon Pelé de Soleil community as a alleged gang leader Albert Steevenson, known as Djouma, prepared to celebrate his birthday.
The group said Steevenson distributed gifts to children during the attack.
Romain Le Court, head of the Haiti observatory on the global initiative against transnational transnational crime, said that the attack raises “urgent questions of responsibility”.
“It’s been 48 hours now since the incident, and the authorities must still issue official communication or assume the public responsibility. Who, ultimately, will assume the responsibility of this attack: the Prime Minister? The Presidential Transitional Council? Private security companies? Haiti national police management?” He asked.
The Court said that attacks would not strengthen the antigan -government story of the gang coalition at a critical moment.
“They are also likely to deepen public distrust in state institutions and to accelerate the erosion of government legitimacy,” he said.
According to the human rights group.
Among the civilians killed was St-Jean Limonthard, 33, whose mother often feared that he worked as a motorcycle taxi driver in a 90% capital controlled by gangs.
“I prayed for him every day so that he was released, and now he died in his own neighborhood, returning from work,” said Aglamoide Saint-Ville, 53, when she was holding her son’s six-year-old daughter on her lap.
Saint-Ville said his son was the head of the family.
“The child will not be able to go to school,” she said. “I don’t know how we are going to eat because we had no savings.”
Activists noted that a similar operation involving explosive drones in downtown Port-au-Prince killed at least 11 civilians earlier this month.
The Human Rights Group said several gang members had been killed in drone attacks since March.
“However, drones have not targeted terrorist leaders. On the contrary, these leaders have become more comfortable and more and more arrogant, moving even openly in convoys. Drons should not be selective, and they must also ensure the protection of civilians to avoid collateral damage,” he said.
A spokesperson for the office of Prime Minister Alix Didier Son-Aimé could not be immediately joined to comment.
A new working group created earlier this year worked outside the supervision of the Haiti national police and used the use of explosive drones. The working group was made up of certain police and private entrepreneurs.
Non-sub-finance mission
The attack comes as VEctus Global, the security company of the former Seal Prince US Navy, plans to deploy nearly 200 staff members of various countries in Haiti as part of a year -round agreement to stifle the violence of the gangs.
In June, Fritz Alphonse Jean, then leader of the Chairman’s Transitional Council of Haiti, confirmed that the government used foreign entrepreneurs. He refused to identify the company or say how much the agreement was worth.
Private entrepreneurs are expected to strengthen a underwater and underweight police service working with the Kenyan police as part of a United Nations mission aimed at fighting gangs.
The mission supported by the UN has 991 staff members, much less than the 2,500 envisaged, and some $ 112 million in its trust fund – around $ 14% of the estimated dollars need a year, according to a recent United Nations report.
On Sunday, the Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres met Laurent Saint-Cyr, president of the Chairman’s Transitional Council of Haiti. They agreed that “urgent international action is necessary to help restore security”, according to a UN press release.
Christopher Landau, deputy secretary of the American State Department, reiterated on Monday the call for a “force for the abolition of gangs” at the UN headquarters.
“The time of action is now,” he said. “It is not a crisis that can be ignored or deferred.”
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