Neighborhood brigades constitute a bulwark against the advance of gangs. Increasingly, most of these self-defense groups find themselves in the dock
At the beginning of January, Poste-Merchant brigadiers summarily executed a young man with no known links to gangs. According to his father, he had gone shopping in a supermarket in Lalue that day.
Killed along the way, the young man joins a growing list of citizen victims: they are extorted, beaten, injured and sometimes executed, not by gangs, but by neighborhood self-defense brigades.
These groups serve as bulwarks for the population of many neighborhoods, helpless in the face of armed groups. But increasingly, many of them attack defenseless citizens whom they are supposed to protect, according to around ten testimonies collected by AyiboPost.
In Caradeux, the population demonstrated last month against the local brigade, accused of extortion and violence. “They withhold our identity documents if we don’t pay the requested funds, we are fed up,” said one of the protesters.
The situation sometimes borders on the burlesque.
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Brigadiers dropped off a young man at the Tabarre police station last January. They accused him of being “a delinquent”, beat him after kidnapping him from a station in Pétion-Ville.
The young man tells a different version of events. According to him, he was intercepted after refusing to pay, early in the day, the “gratification in money or rum” requested by the brigadiers – some of whom are police officers.
His refusal could have cost him his life, were it not for the intervention of his friends in the police at the police station for his release. “Even if the country manages to get rid of the bandits of the “Viv Ansanm” coalition, there is a good chance that other gang centers will arise from these self-defense structures,” the man analyzes to AyiboPost.
In several official declarations, the administration in place called on the population to self-defense against bandits. Many brigades include police or army officers.
However, no one knows the origin of the weapons – sometimes large calibers – displayed by most of the civilian brigadiers, holed up in often isolated neighborhoods of the capital.
The young man tells a different version of events. According to him, he was intercepted after refusing to pay, early in the day, the “gratification in money or rum” requested by the brigadiers – some of whom are police officers.
Several hundred citizens do not have any identification documents, due to the incapacity of the State. But those who do not have one are severely questioned by the brigades. Banditry suspects are executed on the spot, and their bodies burned.
At the beginning of April, Frantz Montclair, head of the Port-au-Prince public prosecutor’s office, reaffirmed the “legality” of the self-defense groups. The previous month, a manager within the Departmental Operation and Intervention Brigade (BOID) told AyiboPost they don’t interfere in the activities of the brigades in the Fort-National area.
But more and more, brigadiers are abandoning the primary objective of protecting the population.
Citizens like Phillipe Martial lack recourse. Saturday March 15, this school teacher was trying to enter his home in Marlique when he was “violently” beaten by Pacot brigadiers during a brutal search around 4 p.m.
Slaps.
Violent blows to the head.
The teacher urinated on himself, “unconsciously,” he said.
And weeks after the incident, he reported suffering from frequent dizziness and migraines.
Vigilance brigades date back at least to the fall of Duvalierism in 1986. Excited residents gathered in groups to hunt down “macoutes”, known for their abuses against the population.
Today’s brigades result from an instinctive need for protection that the State is incapable of satisfying, analyzes sociologist Kesler Bien-Aimé.
This situation simultaneously creates, continues the sociologist, “a sort of social control over citizens forced to live under the orders of these self-defense groups, an increasingly divided society where living together and the possibility of cohabiting become more and more complicated”.
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Around ten brigadiers intercepted Kenson Jean near rue Casséus last March. The photographer was returning from a visit to his brother at ruelle Wilson in Pacot and was hurrying to return home to Croix-Desprez.
He was a few meters from his house when members of the brigade blocked his way and ordered him to turn back and return instead via Avenue N — a much longer route.
Jean complained about the arbitrary decision.
In a few minutes, the situation degenerated. He will see his head “broken”, his t-shirt smeared with blood after several violent beatings and punches.
In reality, the brigades impose entry and exit times in the vast majority of neighborhoods that have not yet fallen under gang control in Port-au-Prince. Night visitors are systematically searched.
“The pressure from the brigadiers is very destabilizing and can be fatal to innocent people incapable of explaining themselves easily or incapable of defending themselves properly,” analyzes Junior Moïse – a resident of Port-au-Prince.
Several hundred citizens do not have any identification documents, due to the incapacity of the State. But those who do not have one are severely questioned by the brigades. Banditry suspects are executed on the spot, and their bodies burned.
Moïse had a gun pointed at his head for the first time in his life by heavily armed brigadiers during a search in March, around four in the afternoon, next to the Natcom telecommunications company, in Turgeau.
This incident occurs after he abandoned his home in Carrefour-Feuilles for Turgeau in January 2025 because of attacks by armed gangs.
A resident, wishing to remain anonymous, reports that in the Delmas 60 area, people are required to identify themselves using a form listing all their personal information, including a photo and a tax identification number (NIF).
A form addressed to new arrivals in the Turgeau area to collect their personal information before they can properly settle in the neighborhood.
“This is a worrying situation, especially when we consider that ordinary civilians have access to this personal data, even though we do not necessarily know who they are and cannot completely trust them as to the use they will make of the information,” worries the woman.
In December 2024, a young man left his house in Delmas 30 for Fermathe because he did not want to join the vigilance brigade established in the neighborhood and consequently carry a weapon. He says he is “pacifist”.
According to this young man, aware of the situation, “[former] police officers, among others, participated in the organization of several clandestine episodes of distribution of weapons and machetes to residents of the area for the defense of the neighborhood during the month of December.”
In Delmas 30, the coordination and armed organization of the brigade are ensured, among others, by Angelo Jeanty, a police officer member of “Fantom 509” who was dismissed from the institution in March 2021 and arrested by the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) the same year for accusations of assassination, according to two sources contacted by AyiboPost.
It is not clear whether Jeanty has returned to the police institution.
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The police spokesperson, Michel-Ange Louis-Jeune, was contacted by AyiboPost on March 29, 2025. He stressed that he had no information on the management of the institution’s personnel and referred AyiboPost to directorates, he said, more competent, such as the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ).
Most brigadiers are also hostile to Haitian and foreign journalists, who, some say, give voice to bandits or work on behalf of enemy countries.
Journalist Arnold Junior Pierre works for several media outlets in the capital. He tells AyiboPost that he was the victim of violent attacks by brigadiers on Tuesday March 10 in the vicinity of Delmas 27, while he was taking some photos of the now deserted and dark area.
The professional explains that he was stopped by several civilians in a vehicle. He was severely beaten and could have been killed if his executioners had not noticed the presence of his work badge and his identity card in his bag.
By : Junior Legrand & Lucnise Duquereste
Cover | A man standing, holding a stick in his hand. (Photo : Freepik)
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