Demise toll supplied by the Defenseurs Plus rights group considerably exceeds official estimates of 16.
Printed On 31 Mar 2026
At the very least 70 individuals have been killed and 30 injured throughout an assault close to Petite-Riviere in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite area, a human rights group mentioned, considerably greater than official estimates, which put the demise toll at roughly 16.
Residents and officers advised native media that the assault started within the early hours of Sunday in rural communities round Jean-Denis, and continued into the early hours of Monday, with gang members storming the realm and setting properties on hearth.
The Defenseurs Plus rights group mentioned it estimated that 6,000 individuals had been displaced by the violence. The United Nations estimated that greater than 2,000 individuals had left their properties within the days earlier than, following raids by armed gangs close by.
Police initially reported 16 useless and 10 injured, whereas a preliminary report from civil safety authorities mentioned 17 had died and 19 had been wounded, principally males.
A spokesperson for the UN secretary-general advised a information briefing that the organisation’s workplace in Haiti, BINUH, was carefully monitoring the occasions and that estimates ranged from 10 to 80 individuals killed. He known as for a radical investigation.
“The shortage of a safety response and the abandonment of Artibonite to armed teams reveal a whole abdication of duty by the authorities,” Defenseurs Plus mentioned in a joint assertion with the Collective to Save the Artibonite.
An audio message that circulated on social media was attributed to Gran Grif chief Luckson Elan. Within the message, Elan seems to say the assault was a retaliation for assaults on the group’s base in Savien by a rival armed group.
The Artibonite area, a key agricultural space, has seen a few of Haiti’s worst violence. Gang battle has prolonged past the capital, Port-au-Prince, regardless of extra aggressive policing and guarantees of extra overseas assist for Haiti’s safety forces.
Haiti’s Nationwide Police mentioned it deployed three armoured autos, which had been slowed by holes that gang members had dug within the highway. Officers mentioned the armed group was fleeing the realm when police arrived, and several other homes had been already burned down.
The injured had been then taken to a neighborhood hospital, and the useless to 2 morgues, police mentioned, including that they’ve launched an operation to trace down the gang members who fled.
Defenseurs Plus estimated that fifty homes had been burned down.
Shut to twenty,000 individuals have been killed in Haiti since 2021, based on a latest UN report, with the demise toll rising every year, as more and more unbiased and highly effective armed gangs have clashed with safety forces and native vigilante teams.
Gran Grif and Viv Ansanm, which teams collectively lots of of gangs within the capital, have been designated as “terrorist” organisations by the US. The teams have been accused of mass killings, gang rapes, arson, theft and trafficking weapons, medicine and organs.
This month, the US supplied a reward of as much as $3m for info on their monetary actions.
The weekend’s assault marks the most recent of a sequence of massacres within the space, largely attributed to Gran Grif. In October 2024, a Gran Grif assault on the close by city of Pont-Sonde left 115 useless, as armed males shot residents door to door.
Greater than 1.4 million individuals – about 12 % of the Caribbean’s most populous nation – have been displaced by the battle with armed gangs, worsening an financial disaster and entry to meals.
