A mob in the Haitian capital beat and burned 13 suspected gang members to death with gasoline-soaked tires Monday after pulling the men from police custody at a traffic stop, police and witnesses said.
The horrific vigilante violence underlined public anger over the increasingly lawless situation in Port-au-Prince where criminal gangs have taken control over an estimated 60% of the city since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Six more burned bodies were laid in a nearby neighbourhood later Monday, and some witnesses said that police killed them and residents set them on fire, but the AP could not verify the accounts independently.
Haiti National Police said in a brief statement that officers in the city’s Canape Vert section stopped and searched a minibus for contraband early Monday, and had confiscated weapons from suspects before they were “unfortunately lynched by members of the population.”
