Haiti is under a state of emergency and nighttime curfew amid a surge of violence after armed gangs attacked the Carribbean country’s two largest prisons and freed scores of inmates
The Haitian government declared the 72-hour state of emergency on Sunday evening and imposed a curfew from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. in an effort “to restore the order and to take appropriate measures in order to regain control of the situation,” according to a press
The government cited “the deterioration in security, particularly in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, characterized by increasingly violent criminal acts perpetrated by armed gangs, causing massive population displacements and consisting in particular of kidnappings and assassinations of peaceful citizens, violence against women and children, ransacking and theft of public and private property.”
Hundreds — if not thousands — of inmates broke out of the National Penitentiary, Haiti’s biggest prison, in downtown Port-au-Prince on Saturday night following a massive, coordinated attack by gunmen from gangs, two senior Haitian government officials told ABC News.
Of the nearly 4,000 inmates estimated to have been behind bars at the facility prior to Saturday’s assault, fewer than 100 were still inside as of Sunday according to the officials, who cautioned that the actual number of escapees remains unknown.
The Haitian government said in a statement on Sunday that those responsible for the attack were “heavily armed criminals wanting at all costs to free people in custody, particularly for kidnapping, murder and other serious offenses,” and that several inmates and prison staff were injured in the fighting.
Several bodies strewn on the ground in and around the National Penitentiary were openly visible on Sunday morning, according to multiple local journalists who spoke with ABC News, though it was unclear how they died.
A second prison containing an estimated 1,400 inmates was also overrun by armed gangs in nearby Croix des Bouquets that same night. As of Monday morning, that area was entirely under control of gangs, according to the Haitian National Police.
The mass prison break is just the latest in a horrifically violent few days in Haiti, even by the country’s own recent standards where kidnapping and murder rates have exploded.