Haiti officials reported that thousands of local inmates are feared to have escaped the country's central prison following a prison break sparked by gangs storming the facility.
The incident took place Saturday night and marked the country's latest shockwave of violence. There were at least five people who were killed after coordinated attacks among different gangs in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, including an assault on the National Penitentiary.
Haiti Prison Break
The latter is where fewer than 100 inmates remained in their cells after the sudden attack, as revealed by a human rights attorney who works within the prison, Arnel Remy. The rest of the nearly 4,000 inmates were said to have fled during the chaos and left the typically crowded jail in a state where it seemed like a ghost town.
The area had clothes and plastic sandals strewn about inside the prisoners' and the guards' absence. Officials said that three bodies were found with gunshot wounds lying near the facility's wide open entrance and two others near a makeshift roadblock of burning tires, as per the New York Post.
Another prison in the capital of Haiti that was said to have held 1,400 inmates also encountered a prison break when gangs took control of the country's top soccer stadium. This was at a time when internet service for many citizens was down due to a sliced fiber optic cable during the overnight spate of violence.
During the attacks, the embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry was out of the nation, where he was working on requesting other nations' support for a United Nations-backed, Kenyan-led security force for his country.
In the prime minister's absence, the Haitian government urged the nation's citizens to remain vigilant and calm. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Communications Ministry of Haiti said that the National Police was taking all measures to find the escaped prisoners and arrest the ones who were responsible for the criminal acts.
Thousands of Escaped Inmates
It remained unclear how many prisoners were on the run following the chaos, as one unidentified inmate said he was the only one left inside his cell. According to The Guardian, sources that were close to the institutionsaid it was more likely that an "overwhelming" majority of inmates could escape their cells.
The prison was built to hold 700 inmates and had already been holding 3,687 as of February last year, according to RNDDH, a rights group. The violence that was reported on Saturday night appeared to be widespread as various neighborhoods heard gunfire.
A former police officer known as Barbecue, Jimmy Cherizier, led the gangs that attacked the main prison of Haiti. The violence in the region has spiraled in recent times as Cherizier called for criminal groups to unite and overthrow the prime minister.
The former police officer is the head of an alliance of gangs and is facing sanctions from the United Nations as well as the United States. On Sunday, one voluntary prison worker said that 99 prisoners decided to remain in their cells due to fear of being killed in the crossfire, according to Aljazeera.
