Thousands survived a brutal gang attack in Haiti that left 70 people dead. Now they face an uncertain future

PONT-SONDÉ, Haiti – Under the cover of night, dozens of gang members armed with knives and assault rifles sneaked into the small town of Pont-Sondé in central Haiti while families slept.

The gang had traveled from nearby Savien in vehicles which they parked halfway through the journey and boarded canoes for the final stretch for a quiet journey.

Gunshots and screams woke the city. Those who weren’t shot were stabbed. Fires destroyed houses.

“They tried to murder everyone,” said Jina Joseph, who survived.

The Gran Grif gang killed babies and young mothers, elderly people and entire families out of anger that a self-defense group had tried to restrict the gang’s activities in Pont-Sondé and prevent them from making money from a makeshift toll booth she had recently set up on a site nearby.

The gang fled on foot through nearby rice fields after Thursday’s attack, leaving more than 70 bodies scattered across the city.

It was the largest massacre that the once peaceful central region of Haiti had experienced in recent history. Thousands now face an uncertain future and are deprived of their jobs, homes and families.

Jameson Fermilus, who had cowered in a hallway next to his home as smoke and gunfire filled the air, later joined more than 6,000 other survivors who walked for hours in search of safety.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” said another who joined them, 60-year-old Sonise Morino. “We can’t go anywhere.”

Thousands headed west to the coastal town of Saint-Marc. Days after the massacre, a crowd of men, women and children gathered around a good Samaritan who stood on his car handing out food and drinks.

The newly homeless people crowded into a church, a school and a public square under the shade of trees. Those lucky enough to get some food sat on a dusty curb and ate. At night they curled up on concrete floors and tried to sleep.

“These deaths are unimaginable,” said Mayor Myriam Fièvre during her meeting with survivors.

According to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, the majority of the 6,270 homeless people have found temporary shelter with relatives living nearby.

But more than 750 others have nowhere to go, joining the more than 700,000 people already made homeless by gang violence across Haiti in recent years.

At the school used as a temporary shelter, a mother leaned against a blackboard and slowly patted her sleeping baby on the back as she stared into the distance.

Massacres on the scale of Pont-Sondé were once unheard of in Haiti’s central region, although gang violence has increased recently. Such massacres have only been reported in the capital, Port-au-Prince, which is 80% under gang control.

But things changed when former lawmaker Prophane Victor began arming young men nearly a decade ago to secure his election and control the area. This led to the creation of the Gran Grif gang, which controls Savien, Pont-Sondé and other places in the Artibonite region, according to the United Nations

Victor and Gran Grif leader Luckson Elan were sanctioned by the US last month. Elan was also sanctioned by the UN Security Council, which noted that Gran Grif is “the largest and most powerful” gang in Artibonite and carried out nine mass kidnappings from October 2023 to January 2024, including those of 157 people.

During that time, Elan killed a woman because she refused to have sex with him, the UN said.

The gang, whose name means “Big Claw,” is also one of the countries with the highest child recruitment rates in Haiti, according to the UN

Gran Grif is one of at least 20 criminal groups operating in Artibonite, where much of Haiti’s rice and other crops are grown. More than 22,000 people have been forced to flee in recent years because gunmen have attacked farmers and stolen crops and livestock, according to the United Nations, which has called the authorities’ response “inadequate and inconsistent.”

In an interview on Monday, Romain Le Cour, senior Haiti expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said he was concerned about the impact last week’s massacre was having on other gangs, despite a new United Nations-backed mission in Haiti could have.

“It is a message that they are more powerful than the others and that they are prepared to use brutal force against the people to ensure that their territorial power and economic control remain intact,” he said.

Le Cour noted that the Haitian National Police and the Kenyan Police-led mission are facing difficulties as they operate alone in Port-au-Prince.

“It will be even more difficult to open multiple fronts,” he said. “It’s a huge challenge for the government at the moment.”

Since the massacre, the Haitian government has sent armored vehicles, elite police and medical supplies to Pont-Sondé and Saint-Marc, and Prime Minister Garry Conille visited the lone hospital overflowing with injured patients.

On Monday morning, police were still trying to enter areas of Pont-Sondé, while members of the self-defense group who remained in the city refused to talk. The normally busy main street remained largely empty. Shots rang out in the distance.

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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.