Gangs strangle Haiti's capital as deaths, kidnappings soar

Gangs are fighting each other and seizing territory in Haiti's capital with a new intensity and brutality

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- It was about 6 a.m. when Venique Moïse flung open the door of her house and saw dozens of people running — their children in one hand and scant belongings in the other — as gunfire intensified.

Minutes later, she joined the crowd with her three kids and fled their neighborhood in Haiti’s capital as fires burned nearby, collapsing homes where hours later the bodies of nearly 200 men, women and children shot or mutilated with machetes by warring gangs were found alongside skulls and bones of victims set ablaze in late April.

“That Sunday, when the war started, I felt that I was going to die,” Moïse said.

Gangs are fighting each other and seizing territory in the capital of Port-au-Prince with a new intensity and brutality. The violence has horrified many who feel the country is swiftly unraveling as it tries to recover from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the United Nations prepares to debate the future of its longtime presence in Haiti.