Haiti: UN ‘horrified’ after at least 70 killed in gang massacre
At least 70 people have been killed in a gang massacre in Haiti, the UN has said.
Armed gunmen belonging to the Gran Grif gang passed through the town of Pont-Sonde with automatic rifles, shooting at residents on Thursday, according to the United Nations’ Human Rights Office.
“We are horrified by Thursday’s gang attacks in the town of Pont-Sonde in Haiti’s Artibonite region,” a spokesperson said.
At least 16 people were also seriously injured in the attack in the early hours of Thursday, according to the UN.
Gang members were said to have set fire to at least 45 homes and 34 vehicles, forcing residents to flee.
Gang violence in Haiti is rampant and has brought parts of the country to a standstill.
Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay previously interviewed a man known as Barbecue, one of the country’s most powerful criminals.
Women and children among the dead
Bodies lay strewn on the streets of Pont-Sonde, in the Artibonite region, many of them shot in the head, a spokeswoman for the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation and Awareness to Save the Artibonite, told Magik 9 radio station.
Among the victims were a young mother, her newborn baby, and a midwife.
In total, it was said that 10 women and three children were among the dead.
Video of the attack showed hundreds running for their lives.
The motive for one of the biggest massacres in the country’s central region in recent years remains unclear.
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Attacks of that kind have taken place in the capital Port-au-Prince, which is 80% controlled by gangs, and they are typically linked to turf wars.
While rival gang members generally target areas controlled by one another, Pont-Sonde is considered a part of Gran Grif’s own territory.
The Haitian government deployed an elite police unit based in the country’s capital to Pont-Sonde following the attack and sent medical supplies to the area’s lone hospital, overwhelmed by the dozens of people injured.
“This heinous crime, perpetrated against defenceless women, men, and children, is not only an attack on these victims, but on the entire Haitian nation,” Prime Minister Garry Conille said in a statement on Friday.
In an audio message shared on Thursday, Gran Grif leader Luckson Elan, who was sanctioned by the UN last month, blamed the state and victims for the attacks, accusing residents of remaining passive as his soldiers were killed by police or vigilante groups.
“It’s Pont-Sonde residents who are at fault. What happened in Pont-Sonde is the fault of the state,” he claimed without evidence.
Gang violence across Artibonite, which produces much of Haiti’s food, has increased in recent years.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against the Houthis and their Iranian “masters” after the group launched a missile attack on the country’s main international airport.
A missile fired by the group from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport, causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Mr Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
Israeli police officers investigate the missile crater. Pic: Reuters
The missile impact left a plume of smoke and briefly halted flights and commuter traffic at the airport. Some international carriers have cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv for several days.
Four people were lightly wounded, paramedic service Magen David Adom said.
Air raid sirens went off across Israel and footage showed passengers yelling and rushing for cover.
The attack came hours before senior Israeli cabinet ministers were set to vote on whether to intensify the country’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, and as the army began calling up thousands of reserves in anticipation of a wider operation in the enclave.
Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport.
Iran’s defence minister later told a state TV broadcaster that if the country was attacked by the US or Israel, it would target their bases, interests and forces where necessary.
Israel’s military said several attempts to intercept the missile were unsuccessful.
Air, road and rail traffic were halted after the attack, police said, though it resumed around an hour later.
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Yemen’s Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel since its war with Hamas in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, and while most have been intercepted, some have penetrated the country’s missile defence systems and caused damage.
Israel has previously struck the group in Yemen in retaliation and the US and UK have also launched strikes after the Houthis began attacking international shipping, saying it was in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas.
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