The SUN–
SMOULDERING bodies line streets, sniper rounds pound from rooftops, and children scream – Haiti’s capital is under siege by armed gangs, but there’s a new grisly group in town.
The most dangerous city on earth has become even deadlier as vigilantes have taken the law into their own hands to hunt down criminal gangs street-by-street – turning Port-au-Prince into a city in open warfare.
Haiti has long suffered the title of the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, and recently was announced as the hungriest – but it is also racked by vicious bloodshed.
Horrific scenes over the last few months have seen fighting on the streets as gangs clash with the vigilantes – with some of the criminals even being butchered, lynched and burned.
The Caribbean nation is “dangling over an abyss”, according to a human rights chief for the United Nation.
Persistent earthquakes, soaring inflation, famine and a near-total political collapse all plague the city, while machine-gun-wielding gangs continue to terrorise the population – kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering at random.
Experts believe these ruthless thugs now control up to 80% of the capital paralysing the city in a violent rage.
The spiralling violence has spilt into previously safer areas in the north as tens of thousands flee further into the hills to escape.
“No area within the capital is now safe from the grip of gangs,” a UN human rights spokesperson told The Sun Online.
“The population is the collateral and increasingly the targeted victim.”
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