Haitian inmates escape prison in third recent jailbreak, Miami Herald says
2024.08.16 12:58
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Inmates broke out of a prison in the Haitian city of St. Marc in the third jailbreak in recent months, the Miami Herald reported on Friday, citing a notice saying the police were mobilized to search for the escaped prisoners.
The police notice asked the public to report suspicious people, the Herald said. Unverified videos shared on social media showed people climbing over walls and smoke streaming out of walls ringed with barbed wire, a loud explosion and fire.
The national police did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for more information. Officials in Saint-Marc said on Friday the prison held 502 inmates but did not give precise details of what had happened.
Early March, armed gangs broke more than 4,000 inmates from two major Haitian prisons – the National Penitentiary in central Port-au-Prince and a civil prison of Croix-des-Bouquets.
Those who had been held there included people implicated in the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
The March jailbreak triggered a state of emergency that was soon followed by the resignation of former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who had traveled abroad to secure Kenya’s support in a security mission to battle the armed gangs, and was unable to return due to the fighting which cut off the main airport.
Just 400 of 1,000 police pledged by Kenya have so far arrived, and of the other countries which pledged personnel to support Haiti’s under-resourced police, none have deployed.
Local newspaper El Nouvelliste reported that prison officials had been on strike demanding better government treatment, and cited commissioner Venson Francois expressing “great fear of mutiny,” without giving more details.
Police have struggled to hold off gangs as the delivery of funds, personnel and equipment for the U.N.-backed security mission first requested in 2022 continues to lag.
Late July, local media reported that a Kenyan mission to Ganthier, a community near the border with the Dominican Republic, had rapidly ended with police having to help them escape gang gunfire due to lack of preparedness and resources.
The conflict has forced close to 600,000 to flee their homes for elsewhere in Haiti and some 5 million people – close to half the population – into severe hunger.
