A deadly drone attack in an impoverished area of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, which killed at least 11 people, including eight children, is being blamed on the government, as the country’s use of the UAVs in its war on gangs comes under increasing scrutiny.
The incident happened on Saturday night in Cite Soleil, one of Port-au-Prince’s most dangerous neighbourhoods, in the city’s west along the coast, as Albert Steevenson, known as Djouma or “King Jouma”, who is a suspected gang leader, was celebrating his birthday.
The area is believed to be controlled by the Viv Ansanm (Living Together) coalition of gangs, which the United States designated a “foreign terrorist” organisation in May.
One of the group’s leaders and most notorious figures, Jimmy Cherizier, known as Barbecue, promised to avenge the attack.
Claudia Bobrun, 30, whose daughter was killed in the attack, showed The Associated Press news agency a video of the eight-year-old in a pool of blood, as she burst into tears.
Merika, another four-year-old victim of the attack, was playing with other children at 8pm in the Simon Pele neighbourhood, in Cite Soleil, where the suspected kamikaze drone exploded.
The girl’s grandmother, Mimose Duclaire, told the Miami Herald: “While they were playing, I heard a ‘boom’ and when I looked, I saw both of her knees were broken and her head was split open.”
Merika died on her way to the hospital.
The National Human Rights Defence Network (RNDDH), a human rights group, has said the explosions were caused by two kamikaze drones launched by the Haitian National Police task force.
Neither the spokesperson for Haitian police nor the prime minister’s office responded to the AP’s requests for comment on the incident.
The RNDDH said the casualty figures were a conservative estimate, but believed at least four gang members were killed, as well as three civilians.
Authorities in Haiti have been battling soaring levels of gang violence in their capital, where gangs control approximately 80 percent of the city, according to the United Nations, and began turning to drones earlier this year to gain an edge.
The government first publicly signalled that it was using drones in June when local police posted a video on Facebook of an attack on a gang leader. The government is believed to have been using drones since March this year.
The drones were supplied by Canada’s police, which has since said Haiti’s use of the explosives contravenes its domestic laws and violates assurances that they would not be used for conflict.
In an interview in July with the Financial Times, Fritz Jean, then chair of Haiti’s transitional presidential council, defended their use amid growing concern about whether military weapons can be used in a place where the threshold for an armed conflict has not been reached.
Jean told the Financial Times that his country’s forces “needed this air support in order for the police and army to enter gang areas”. He added, “If you don’t call that a war, I don’t know what is.”
On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met Laurent Saint-Cyr, the current president of Haiti’s transitional presidential council. They agreed that “urgent international action is needed to help restore security”, according to a UN statement.
In August, a UN report found that 1,520 people had been killed in the country between April and June this year and at least 600 were injured. An estimated 1.3 million Haitians, 10 percent of the country’s population, have been displaced from their homes due to the violence which has gripped the capital.
