Dozens Killed in Haiti Massacre as International Force Trickles In | Nation & World

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ilres Théophile, a farmer living north of Haiti’s capital, said he woke in the middle of the night last Sunday to the unmistakable sound of heavy gunfire. Gran Grif, a feared gang in the area, had warned for days that it planned to attack a nearby community.

He fled, returning after sunrise to find carnage in the streets. Théophile’s three brothers and his son were among the dead. Homes, including his, were in flames. Gran Grif’s coordinated assault on at least eight towns in the agricultural Artibonite region left as many as 70 people dead.

The massacre took place a few days before the arrival of the first wave of a United Nations-backed, multinational force created to quell the spiraling gang violence that has gripped Haiti for years. While the new Gang Suppression Force is expected to take a more aggressive approach than previous efforts, the slaughter in Artibonite underscored the challenges facing both the new force and Haitian police in confronting the heavily armed groups.

The understaffed and ill-equipped police were delayed in responding to the violence because the gang had set up roadblocks, according to both police and human rights activists. When police left the scene after a few hours, the gang returned and set homes ablaze.

“These are terrorists; it’s not something for a police operation,” said Pierre Espérance, executive director of the National Human Rights Defense Network, a leading human rights group.

Estimates of the death toll range from 42 to 70. Regardless of the exact tally, the U.N.-backed force is not expected to field a full, 5,500-member contingent until the fall, leaving Haitians trapped in the crossfire of a war for power, money and territory.

Nearly 6,000 people died in gang violence in 2025, and more than one-tenth of the country’s population, about 1.4 million people, have been uprooted from their homes, according to U.N. figures.

In 2024, foreign police officers, mostly Kenyan, arrived to back the fledgling Haitian National Police, but they have failed to stop the rampant killings. The new Gang Suppression Force, approved by the U.N. Security Council in September, will be more militarized and act more independently.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.