Gangs launch large-scale attack in Haiti's central region as hundreds flee gunfire and burning homes

AINT-MARC, Haiti — Heavily armed gangs attacked Haiti’s central region over the weekend, killing men, women and children as they set fire to homes and forced survivors to flee into the darkness .

Police made emergency calls for backup, asserting that 50% of the Artibonite region had fallen under gang control after the large-scale attacks targeting towns including Bercy and Pont-Sondé.

“The population cannot live, cannot work, cannot move,” one of Haiti’s police unions, SPNH-17, said Sunday on X. “Losing the country’s 2 largest departments — West and Artibonite — is the greatest security failure in modern Haitian history .”

The bulk of Haiti’s police force and the Kenyan officers leading a U.N.-backed mission to help repel gangs are in the capital, Port-au-Prince, which itself