Loss of life toll offered by the Defenseurs Plus rights group considerably exceeds official estimates of 16.
Revealed On 31 Mar 2026
Not less than 70 folks have been killed and 30 injured throughout an assault close to Petite-Riviere in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite area, a human rights group mentioned, considerably greater than official estimates, which put the dying toll at roughly 16.
Residents and officers instructed native media that the assault started within the early hours of Sunday in rural communities round Jean-Denis, and continued into the early hours of Monday, with gang members storming the realm and setting houses on hearth.
The Defenseurs Plus rights group mentioned it estimated that 6,000 folks had been displaced by the violence. The United Nations estimated that greater than 2,000 folks had left their houses within the days earlier than, following raids by armed gangs close by.
Police initially reported 16 useless and 10 injured, whereas a preliminary report from civil safety authorities mentioned 17 had died and 19 have been wounded, largely males.
A spokesperson for the UN secretary-general instructed a information briefing that the organisation’s workplace in Haiti, BINUH, was carefully monitoring the occasions and that estimates ranged from 10 to 80 folks killed. He known as for an intensive investigation.
“The shortage of a safety response and the abandonment of Artibonite to armed teams reveal a whole abdication of accountability by the authorities,” Defenseurs Plus mentioned in a joint assertion with the Collective to Save the Artibonite.
An audio message that circulated on social media was attributed to Gran Grif chief Luckson Elan. Within the message, Elan seems to say the assault was a retaliation for assaults on the group’s base in Savien by a rival armed group.
The Artibonite area, a key agricultural space, has seen a few of Haiti’s worst violence. Gang battle has prolonged past the capital, Port-au-Prince, regardless of extra aggressive policing and guarantees of extra international help for Haiti’s safety forces.
Haiti’s Nationwide Police mentioned it deployed three armoured automobiles, which have been slowed by holes that gang members had dug within the highway. Officers mentioned the armed group was fleeing the realm when police arrived, and a number of other homes have been already burned down.
The injured have been then taken to an area hospital, and the useless to 2 morgues, police mentioned, including that they’ve launched an operation to trace down the gang members who fled.
Defenseurs Plus estimated that fifty homes have been burned down.
Shut to twenty,000 folks have been killed in Haiti since 2021, in keeping with a latest UN report, with the dying toll rising every year, as more and more impartial and highly effective armed gangs have clashed with safety forces and native vigilante teams.
Gran Grif and Viv Ansanm, which teams collectively lots of of gangs within the capital, have been designated as “terrorist” organisations by america. The teams have been accused of mass killings, gang rapes, arson, theft and trafficking weapons, medication and organs.
This month, the US provided a reward of as much as $3m for data on their monetary actions.
The weekend’s assault marks the most recent of a sequence of massacres within the space, largely attributed to Gran Grif. In October 2024, a Gran Grif assault on the close by city of Pont-Sonde left 115 useless, as armed males shot residents door to door.
Greater than 1.4 million folks – about 12 % of the Caribbean’s most populous nation – have been displaced by the battle with armed gangs, worsening an financial disaster and entry to meals.
