Free Republic

Gang members brandishing automatic rifles stormed through a town in Haiti’s main breadbasket region, killing at least 70 and forcing over 6,000 to flee, causing widespread shock even in a country grown accustomed to outbreaks of violence. More people were severely injured in the attack in the early hours of Thursday at Pont-Sonde, in the agricultural region of Artibonite in western Haiti. Gran Grif gang leader Luckson Elan took responsibility for the massacre, saying it was in retaliation for civilians remaining passive while police and vigilante groups killed his soldiers. The gang members set fire to dozens of homes and...

At least 70 people have been killed in a gang massacre in Haiti, the UN has said. Armed gunmen belonging to the Gran Grif gang passed through the town of Pont-Sonde with automatic rifles, shooting at residents on Thursday, according to the United Nations' Human Rights Office.

The Dominican Republic says it plans to expel as many as 10,000 Haitian migrants per week, despite a longstanding call from the United Nations to end forced returns to Haiti amid a surge in gang violence there. Homero Figueroa, a Dominican presidential spokesman, said on Wednesday that the “operation aims to reduce the excessive migrant populations detected in Dominican communities”. Figueroa added that the expulsions to Haiti, which shares a border with the Dominican Republic on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, would begin “immediately”. The announcement comes just days after the UN reported that at least 3,661 people had been...