Haiti reeling after 70 killed in gang attack

PORT-AU-PRINCE: The Haitian government has deployed specialist anti-gang police units, it said on Friday, after an apparent massacre northwest of Port-au-Prince that the United Nations said left at least 70 dead.

The attack, carried out early on Thursday in the town of Pont Sonde, some 100-kms from the capital, also saw scores of houses and vehicles torched after gang members open fired.

“Members of the Gran Grif gang used automatic rifles to shoot at the population, killing at least 70 people, among them about 10 women and three infants,” UN Human Rights Office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said in a statement on Friday.

The Haitian Prime Minister´s office said in a statement that “this latest act of violence, targeting innocent civilians, is unacceptable and demands an urgent, rigorous and coordinated response from the state.”

The embattled Haitian National Police would be “stepping up its efforts,” the statement said, adding “agents from the Temporary Anti-Gang Unit (UTAG) have been deployed as reinforcements to back up teams already on the ground.”

At least 16 people were seriously injured, the UN said, including two gang members shot by the police.

Gang members reportedly set fire to at least 45 houses and 34 vehicles, it added, forcing an unknown number of residents to flee.