Haitian gang attacks town, kills teacher, kidnaps residents and burns buildings

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A Haitian gang attacked a small town northwest of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, killing, kidnapping and burning down buildings as gang violence devours the Caribbean nation.

Gunmen opened fired on the streets of Bassin Bleu around noon on Thursday, killing at least one high school teacher, according the Catholic Church and local leaders.

The surge of violence stirred panic in the community as gang members burned the police station, the town hall and a number of other buildings and looted a credit union.

It was the first attack of this scale in the community, which has largely gone untouched by spiraling gang violence besieging Haiti. Such brutal attacks on rural communities have grown increasingly common as gangs have gradually expanded their control across the country.

“Many people in Bassin Bleu managed to escape, and were forced to flee their homes and cross a river with a powerful current just to not be suffocated by the violence,” the office of the bishop in northwestern Haiti wrote in a statement. “What can we do because now we have nowhere to run.”

The office and local leader Rodlet Jean Baptiste, speaking on Radio Caraibes, blamed the attack on the gang Kokorat San Ras, which has a firm grip on the region.

The gang is part of a larger gang coalition known as Viv Ansanm, behind some of the worst atrocities in the Caribbean nation in recent years. In May, the Trump administration designated the group as a foreign terrorist organization.

According to a recent report by the United Nations, “Kokorat San Ras, despite its limited numbers, is also a very brutal gang” that operates in the Artibonite region. Its roughly 20 members have “committed acts of extreme violence, forcing people to abandon large areas of cropland and threatening agricultural production.”

The bishop’s office also cast blame on Haitian police and the country’s government, which has struggled to reel in the heavily-armed gangs. It demanded action in easing soaring gang violence in the northwest region.

“Why are government authorities, who are responsible for our people’s safety, letting the country reach this state?” it wrote. “Haitians have become the victims of our own fellow Haitians. We are tired.”

Haitian National Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment and more information on the attack.

Years of attempts by U.N. parties and world leaders, including the U.N. backed Multinational Security Support mission working alongside Haitian National Police, to put an end to spiraling violence in Haiti has done little to ease the bloodshed.

Just last week, gunmen threw a Molotov cocktail into an police armored vehicle, killing three people outside the capital. And days before that, dozens of people were massacred in a small fishing village, something a local official said “highlights the urgent need for effective state intervention.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned such attacks, saying he was “alarmed by the levels of violence rocking Haiti.”