Thousands of prisoners escape from Haiti’s national penitentiary

The Croix-des-Bouquets prison was also attacked yesterday, Saturday. It is unclear whether any prisoners escaped

It’s 8 o’clock yesterday, Saturday evening. The man hastens his pace in inky darkness.

Visibly in his sixties, he holds up his pants as he arrives in front of around 15 police officers at the Western Departmental Directorate (DDO) of the Haitian National Police (PNH), near Champ-de-Mars.

“I am a prisoner from the national penitentiary, commanders, he said. I have spent around 10 years in prison for theft and criminal conspiracy. I have never been tried. I want to go to Pétion-Ville.”

Around the surreal scene, blasts worthy of a battlefield resonate. Some officers are calling for the execution of the distraught old man. But according to a witness, the majority of agents decided to let him go.

I’m a prisoner of the national penitentiary, commanders. I have spent around 10 years in prison for theft and criminal conspiracy. I have never beentried. I want to go to Pétion-Ville.

Departed for the unknown, since this Sunday, March 3, 2024, several corpses – presumed to be former prisoners of the penitentiary – litter the streets of Port-au-Prince.

Before the unprecedentedly violent armed attack yesterday, March 2, the penitentiary housed nearly 3,800 prisoners. Two sources close to the prison’s authorities say that the vast majority of them escaped, according to findings this Sunday morning.

“Surveys are underway,” says the source.

AyiboPost observed 2 lifeless bodies at the corner of Rue Cameau and Avenue Christophe. A source close to the prison system describes them as former prisoners, apprehended and executed by the population near the Oloffson hotel last night.

Several inmates, seriously injured, were discovered this morning in the courtyard of College Bird, near the national penitentiary. The institution’s attorney asked the government commissioner to send a justice of the peace to collect them. It is not clear whether these efforts were successful.

The Croix-des-Bouquets prison was also attacked yesterday, Saturday. It is not clear whether any inmates escaped.

“I don’t understand the ease with which the largest prison in the country was emptied of its prisoners,” a police officer present near the scene told AyiboPost last night.

This incredulousness ripples through the wider police establishment. Three officers tell AyiboPost that the prison doors were left open when police officers fled in the stampede.

I don’t understand the ease with which the largest prison in the country was emptied of prisoners.

“There was collusion within the National Prison Administration,” analyzes Samuel Madistin, an influential lawyer whose many clients end up in the penitentiary.

Pierre Esperance, director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH), has the same reaction. It was known that the bandits were planning to attack the prison, but “the senior staff did nothing,” says the human rights defender. “Only Frantz Elbé – police director – can provide answers to the justiciary: in my opinion, they handed over the prison to the bandits,” he maintains.

The agents on site were quickly overwhelmed by these events. “The bandits had their plan, the police did not,” another officer on the scene told AyiboPost last night.

To defend his colleagues – deserters – he offers the example of the officers murdered on Feb. 29 at the Bon Repos sub-police station. The latter, according to him, unsuccessfully called for help for hours. At the national penitentiary, the agents “did not want to suffer the same fate” in a context where at least one drone controlled by the gangs was flying over the prison, he said.

By Widlore Mérancourt & Rolph Louis-Jeune

English translation by Sarah Jean.

Cover photo: View of the haitian national penitentiary after the invasion of March 2, 2024 | © Jean Feguens Regala/AyiboPost

Watch this report produced by AyiboPost in 2019 on the issue of prolonged pretrial detention in Haiti: