Haiti: Gangsters Demolish Prison and Police Station

May 20, 2024 Hour: 3:53 pm

On Monday, a gang demolished the Titanyen civilian prison and the Croix-des-Bouquets police station, events that demonstrate the level of violence and ruthlessness of criminal gangs in Haiti.

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The criminals were not content with reducing both prisons to ruins in 48 hours, but also filmed their misdeed and circulated it on social networks, perhaps to warn the foreign forces that are about to arrive in the Caribbean nation that they will be confronted.

“These individuals took pleasure in demolishing these infrastructures to rubble using a bulldozer,” commented the online newspaper Juno 7, which recalled that this is not the first time that civilian prisons and police stations in the country have been attacked by gangs.

On 2 March, the civilian prison of Croix-des-Bouquets and the national penitentiary were attacked, leading to the release of all detainees by armed assailants.

This prison in Titanyen, north of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, was inaugurated by the U.S. ambassador in 2016. Yesterday, a watchtower and a wall were partly demolished, reportedly by a gang. It’s one of several prisons attacked ahead of incoming U.S.-funded police mission. pic.twitter.com/9KmYDAQreu

— Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc)
May 19, 2024

Since this incident, the police authorities have lost all control over these prisons, unable to restore order in the face of the power of these gangs, in particular the 400 Mawozo group led by Lanmò San Jou, the newspaper said.