At least eleven prisoners have died during a new escape from a Haitian prison, the third since March, this time occurring early last Friday in the city of San Marcos, north of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The spokesman for the Haitian National Police, Michel-Ange Louis-Jeune, explained to the American newspaper ‘Miami Herald’ that the escape began at around 02.00 in the morning on Friday, when the penitentiary was the object of an attack by criminal gangs from outside.
One of the prisoners who was escaping has been arrested but eleven others “were fatally wounded during an exchange of gunfire with the police.
Louis-Jeune has been unable to provide the ‘Herald’ with an exact number of escapees while security sources have also confirmed to the AlterPresse portal an undetermined number of officers injured during the shooting. The situation in the prison, they assure however, is already under control, but there is still no official report on the matter.
This escape occurs five months after the devastating attack by armed gangs on the largest prison in Port-au-Prince (the National Penitentiary, in Croix-des-Bouquets), which caused the escape of more than 4,000 prisoners, some of whom are still at large.
The country’s capital has been plunged into absolute chaos for months due to the dominance exercised over it by criminal gangs, which have practically run riot since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021.
The Haitian authorities, for their part, continue to waiting for the international deployment led by Kenya to take effect in an attempt to contain the violence in the country.
During the second quarter of the year, the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) has estimated that 1,379 people have died or been injured –49 of them minors– due to the violence in the Central American country.
