Gang attacks Bassin Bleu: murder, fires and looting in north-west Haiti
Armed men struck the commune of Bassin Bleu on 18 September, killing a teacher and setting fire to several buildings. The gang "Kokorat San Ras" is implicated.
Bassin Bleu ablaze: gang spreads terror in Haiti's north-west
The commune of Bassin Bleu, previously relatively spared from gang violence, was struck hard on Thursday 18 September in mid-afternoon. According to la1ere.franceinfo.fr, armed men opened fire in the streets of the town, killing at least one high-school teacher, according to the Catholic Church and local officials.
The attack rapidly escalated: the police station, the town hall and several other buildings were set on fire, whilst a credit co-operative was ransacked by the assailants. Panic seized the community, forcing many residents to flee hastily.
Civilians forced to cross a swollen river
"Many residents of Bassin Bleu managed to escape, forced to flee their homes and cross a river with a powerful current to escape the violence," the Bishopric of the North-West stated in a communiqué. "What can we do now that we have nowhere left to go?"
Rodlet Jean Baptiste, a local figure, attributed the assault to the gang "Kokorat San Ras", active in the region. This group is a member of the "Viv Ansanm" coalition, involved in some of the worst violence committed in Haiti in recent years. In May, the American administration placed it on the list of foreign terrorist organisations.
A recent UN report describes "Kokorat San Ras" as "a very brutal gang" operating in Artibonite. Its roughly twenty members are said to have committed "acts of extreme violence, forcing entire populations to abandon their cultivated lands and threatening agricultural production".
The Church accuses the authorities of powerlessness
The Bishopric blamed Haitian authorities and the national police, accused of being overwhelmed by gangs that are increasingly better armed. "Why are the governmental authorities, guarantors of the security of our people, allowing the country to sink thus?" the communiqué asks. "Haitians have become the victims of their own countrymen. We are exhausted."
This attack is part of a spiral of violence that is now extending to rural areas, as criminal bands expand their grip over the territory. The previous week, a Molotov cocktail thrown at an armoured police vehicle had cost three lives near the capital. A few days earlier, dozens of people had died in a fishing village—a massacre which, according to a local official, "underscores the urgency of strong and effective intervention by the State".
The combined efforts of the UN, international powers and the Multinational Mission for Security Support (MMSS), deployed alongside the Haitian police, have so far failed to halt the escalation. The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, condemned this violence, saying he was "alarmed by the extent of the brutality shaking Haiti".
Source: Google News HT — Port-au-Prince