-
Haitian flag/file photo
More than 450 violent deaths have been recorded since the start of the attack. the year until last May 20, as a result of the clashes between armed gangs, revealed This Tuesday the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church in Haiti (CE-JILAP), in statements to Efe.
The largest number of victims occurred in the fight for territory between the rival gangs 400 Mawozo and Chen Mechan during last April in the region. Known as the Plaine du Cul de Sac, at the northern entrance to Port-au-Prince.
In a report prepared by the organization, which will be published In the next few days, the number of victims of the latest events that have occurred in the area and that continue to aggravate the security situation in the country will be detailed. Jocelyne Colas, the head of CE-JILAP.
INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF KIDNAPPING
At least twenty people, including a girl ;a, were kidnapped in the last two weeks in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince by armed bandits who act with total impunity, a situation that led to the population to protest in various areas of the capital to demand their release.
The Crime Observation Unit (COC) of the Center for the Analysis and Investigation of Human Rights Humans (Cardh) has recorded 225 kidnappingsin the first quarter of 2022, compared to 142 in the first quarter of 2021, which represents an increase of 58.45%.
In April, the agency observed a considerable decrease in kidnapping cases, however, during May there has been a clear increase, he said. the head of the Cardh, Gédéon Jean.
SEARCH FOR DOCTORS IN HAITI
Since 2019, dozens of doctors have been kidnappedThey have been killed by the gangs, and some of them have been killed while trying to escape from the kidnappers, who carry out the kidnappings in the clinics or on the streets, a circumstance that has led medical professionals to leave the country.
The medical associations denounced yesterday in a press conference that three doctors have been in the hands of kidnappers for several days, for which they asked the authorities to assume their responsibility.
As a result of the kidnapping of doctors Benetty Augustin, Jacques Pierre Pierre and Clervil Ruben, several hospitals in the Port-au-Prince area are closed as a protest.
The The president of the Haitian Medical Association, Carole Cadet, wondered. if the bands “go directly to the doctors. Is it by chance that they have three doctors on their hands? The rest of us wonder how we are going to make a living. We are professionals, we have to live,” he added.
Clashes between armed gangs have caused at least 188 deaths, including 92 civilians and 96 gang members, 12 people are n disappeared, 113 were injured and 49 were kidnapped in these three weeks, according to the most recent balance of the UN.
International organizations and NGOs have denounced that there have been beheadings, burning people alive in their homes and in the street, murders of minors and rape of children, among other crimes, which have caused the exodus of thousands of people in search of safer places.
The proliferation of armed gangs, which have taken over numerous poor neighborhoods imposing their law with extreme violence, has only intensified the serious political, economic and social crisis that the most impoverished country on the continent is going through.