Over one hundred lynchings in Haiti

The lynchings of armed bandits perpetrated by the Haitian population since April 24 have already claimed the lives of more than a hundred people, according to a nongovernmental organization Tuesday (9).

In a report, the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (Rnddh) said that the threats are directed against people demonstrating against this new form of violence that threatens to plunge the country into permanent chaos.

“Some believe that in just a few days, the Bwa Kale movement has achieved more results in the fight against banditry than all police operations combined,” the organization said.

It all began on April 24, when a commercial bus intercepted by the Haitian National Police (PNH) had 14 people with weapons and ammunition on board.

It was rumored that these 14 people wanted to help armed bandits who had been raiding Debussy, a neighborhood in the upper part of Turgeau, since the night of April 23-24.

“On social networks, news of the lynching spread rapidly, and several members of the population, most of them armed with firearms, machetes, and tires, went in search of the armed bandits, their relatives, or people suspected of being associated with them to lynch them,” the report said.

On March 6, the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Emmelie Prophète Milcé, called on the population to defend itself against the armed bandits without considering the damage such a call could cause.

With the help of the Bwa Kale movement, the population has begun the hunt for the bandits.

“The mob armed with machetes and homemade firearms cannot defeat banditry, which the state authorities have established as a system of government for several years.”

“One must always keep in mind that the bandits were armed by those who owe protection to the Haitian population for political and electoral purposes,” the nongovernmental organization stresses in its report, “The Reign of Prime Minister Ariel Henry or the Rage of the Armed Gangs.”

It says the will to eradicate this phenomenon of state banditry in the country must therefore be political.