Criminal bands attack an orphanage and kidnap nine people in Haiti

The gangs that have violently disputed the control of the Kenscoff commune, in the west of Port -au Jean, mayor of the town.

Jean has been dealing with the siege of criminal gangs, whose clashes have left more killed in that region of 60,000 inhabitants. The mayor reported that the orphanage attack was registered in the early hours of Sunday and has described it as a “planned act”, given that the attackers did not shoot at the residents of the premises, although they broke a wall to enter the property and went to the building where the director was staying.

Among the kidnapped people is the responsible, Gena Heraty, of Irish nationality, and who lives in Haiti since 1993. Seven other workers and a three -year -old child were also kidnapped. The center, which is the home of 270 children, deals mainly on the care of people with disabilities. Mayor Jean has reported that until now no requirement has been made from the kidnappers.

The NPFS has described through a statement the fact as “intolerable and unacceptable” and has reported that all the institutions of their network in Haiti-among which are the Saint-Damien hospital, the life program and the family hospital-announced the decision to “close their doors from yesterday to the unconditional liberation of the kidnapped people,” reports Efe. “We say no to impunity, not to indifference, not to the banalization of terror,” said the directors of that organism.

Kenscoff has been one of the regions that has suffered the most the nightmare of violence that bleeds Haiti. The criminal gangs that dispute the control of the territory have unleashed intense fighting since January to seize the city. Jean has alerted several times about the panic suffered by the population due to the constant shots, to the point that there are hundreds who have had to flee to other regions of Haiti. The kidnappings are common by the gangs, which arrested 17 American and Canadian missionaries six months ago.

Haiti suffers his worst security crisis in years. Violence and attacks against humanitarian organizations caused doctors without borders to close two of its centers in April and that the Red Cross warned that “life becomes increasingly precarious” in the Caribbean country. The UN has warned that Puerto Príncipe runs out of hospitals: more than 60% of health centers are not operational. The United Nations has also warned that more than 80% of the prince port is under the control of armed groups, criminal organizations that have taken advantage of the void left after the murder of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 to implement a state of terror: there are more than one million displaced people and deaths ask more than 5,000. This nightmare has generated the worst humanitarian crisis of the western hemisphere. The United States requested at the end of June its citizens to leave the country “as soon as possible” in the face of the escalation of violence, while this Monday reported the closure of its embassy due to the shootings in the vicinity of its headquarters, in the Tabarre neighborhood. “The government staff has paused any official movement outside the embassy enclosure,” said those responsible.