Criminal gang destroys police sub-station in Haiti

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – Members of the Kraze Baryè gang in Haiti, using heavy machinery, have demolished the Pernier sub-police station that had been abandoned since last Thursday when police officers protested the killings of six cops of the Liancourt Police Station by another criminal gang.

Photos show the police station now a pile of rubble as gang members over the last weekend destroyed the building.

Media reports said that the police station was looted and partly burned down last Thursday by unidentified individuals.

The reports said that the show of force by the Kraze Baryè gang comes as a challenge to the police and coincides with the day the National Police of Haiti (PNH) announced the launch of Operation “Tornado 1”.

Prime Minister Dr Ariel Henry has called for the international community to participate in a specialised multinational force to help the Haitian security forces to fight against the proliferation of organised crime, the illicit trafficking of arms and ammunition, and eradicate the gangs that have held the country hostage.

Last Tuesday, at the UN Security Council, Helen La Lime, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative in Haiti, said the country's protracted political and humanitarian crises, marked by spiking levels of gang-related violence and a badly struggling national police force, were reversing crucial security and development strides made since the devastating 2010 earthquake.

La Lime said that more than 2,100 murders and an estimated 1,300 kidnappings were reported last year and gang violence overall reached levels not seen in decades.

She said turf wars involving two gang coalitions, namely the G9 coalition and G-Pep, reached unprecedented levels in several neighbourhoods of Cité Soleil.

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