Haiti's Artibonite area once more site of gang massacre: Homes burned, residents killed

Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald on Mar 30, 2026

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A predawn assault by heavily armed gang members has once again left a trail of bodies and burned homes in Haiti’s breadbasket, residents and officials said.

The attack began around 2 a.m. Sunday in the locality of Jean-Denis and its surrounding rural communities in the Lower Artibonite region. Attacks continued around 2 a.m. Monday.

A police source confirmed that at least 16 bodies had been taken to a local morgue, and 10 injured people were receiving treatment at a hospital in the nearby port city of St. Marc. The full extent of the casualties remained unclear, as reports suggests a significantly higher death toll.

The attacks unfolded after heavily armed members of the Gran Grif gang stormed the area, opening fire and setting homes ablaze. Some victims were reportedly burned alive, said Bertide Horace, who works with the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation and Awareness to Save the Artibonite.

Horace said the commission has confirmed at least 30 dead, but because of the gang’s control of the area it’s difficult to get a definitive count. The commission also received information that at least eight people had been kidnapped by gang members. Videos circulating on social media showed burned houses and bullet-riddled bodies.

“There are a lot of people who are unaccounted for, and we can’t yet say if they died,” Horace said.

It’s unclear what provoked the attack, but the region, home to another armed group known as Temepri and self-defense groups, has been a hotbed of terror. In March of last year, a member of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission was killed in a gang ambush in the same area where Sunday’s attack unfolded.

Two months later, more than 20 people were killed in the region during a massacre perpetrated by self-defense groups. Among those killed was 86-year-old pastor Jean-Jacques Brutus and members of his congregation who were inside praying at his Maranatha Baptist Church in the community of Préval.

The later attack occurred while people were preparing to participate in a rara festival, a cultural tradition during Easter rooted in this part of the country. To prevent access to the area and hinder a police response, gang members cut off bridges and booby-trapped roads, Horace said.

Gran Grif is one of several armed gangs designated last year by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. But the designation, United Nations sanctions against its leader, and a recent $3 million bounty offered by the United States have failed to slow its terror.

Their latest attack comes as the Kenyan troops that are part of the Multinational Security Support mission, which slowed its operations in the region after its officer was killed and the body never recovered, begin to withdraw from Haiti as part of the transition to arrive in Haiti this week.

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