SAINT-MARC, Haiti (AP) — Nearly 6,300 people have fled their homes in the aftermath of an attack in central Haiti by heavily armed gang members that killed at least 70 people, according to the U.N.’s migration agency.
Nearly 90% of the displaced are staying with relatives in host families, while 12% have found refuge in other sites including a school, the International Organization for Migration said in a report last week.
The attack in Pont-Sondé happened in the early hours of Thursday morning, and many left in the middle of the night.
Gang members “came in shooting and breaking into the houses to steal and burn. I just had time to grab my children and run in the dark,” said 60-year-old Sonise Mirano on Sunday, who was camping with hundreds of people in a park in the nearby coastal city of Saint-Marc.
Bodies lay strewn on the streets of Pont-Sondé following the attack in the Artibonite region, many of them killed by a shot to the head, Bertide Harace, spokeswoman for the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation and Awareness to Save the Artibonite, told Magik 9 radio station on Friday.
Initial estimates put the number of those killed at 20 people, but activists and government officials discovered more bodies as they accessed areas of the town. Among the victims was a young mother, her newborn baby and a midwife, Herace said.
Prime Minister Garry Conille vowed that the perpetrators would face the full force of the law in comments in Saint-Marc on Friday.
“It is necessary to arrest them, bring them to justice, and put them in prison. They need to pay for what they have done, and the victims need to receive restitution,” he said.