Gangs launch large-scale attack in Haiti's central region as hundreds flee gunfire and burning homes

SAINT-MARC, Haiti — Heavily armed gangs attacked Haiti’s central region over the weekend, killing men, women and children as they set fire to homes and forced survivors to flee into the darkness.

Police made emergency calls for backup, asserting that 50% of the Artibonite region had fallen under gang control after the large-scale attacks targeting towns including Bercy and Pont-Sondé.

“The population cannot live, cannot work, cannot move,” one of Haiti’s police unions, SPNH-17, said Sunday on X. “Losing the country’s 2 largest departments — West and Artibonite — is the greatest security failure in modern Haitian history.”

The bulk of Haiti’s police force and the Kenyan officers leading a U.N.-backed mission to help repel gangs are in the capital, Port-au-Prince, which itself is largely held by gangs.