How a Drone Attack Wiped Out a Family in Bel Air

A member of the diaspora recounts to AyiboPost how a drone explosion killed his younger sister, his two brothers, and his father, after his unsuccessful attempts to evacuate the family from the shantytown

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For over a year, the 28-year-old man had been desperately trying to relocate his family living in Bel Air.

Efforts to leave the gang-controlled slum dragged on: landlords refused to rent their homes to the family because they lacked “reference people” in the neighborhoods they hoped to move to, according to his account.

From the United States, where he settled under the Humanitarian Parole program, the man—himself a native of Bel Air—intensified his search after learning that police were operating near the family home.

In early January 2026, a friend finally ended the long wait. He found an apartment for the family in the Maïs Gâté area.

But on the very day of the move, January 7—coinciding with ongoing police operations in this downtown Port-au-Prince neighborhood—violence caught up with the family.

From the United States, where he settled under the Humanitarian Parole program, the man—himself a native of Bel Air—intensified his search after learning that police were operating near the family home.

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Bandits control everything in Bel Air: they rape women and girls, extort residents, and at times force some of them to help set traps and barricade entrances to block police interventions.

Since the end of last year, authorities have sought to retake control of the area, where many families live. They have been attacking gangs through operations supported by the Task Force, the Haitian Armed Forces, and the Gang Suppression Force.

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Between January 1 and January 11, more than fifty civilians were killed, and dozens of families were forced to flee Bel Air, Saint-Martin, and La Saline, according to the human rights organization Combite for Peace and Development (CPD).

The State failed to mobilize to protect civilians, Fritznel Pierre, CPD’s executive director, told AyiboPost.

About 24 hours before intervening in the affected areas, police officers used megaphones mounted on armored vehicles to urge residents not affiliated with gangs to leave, Pierre said.

But according to him, no measures were taken to assist those encouraged to flee.

Amid the clashes, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced in a statement dated January 8 the temporary suspension of its activities in Bel Air.

Bandits control everything in Bel Air: they rape women and girls, extort residents, and at times force some of them to help set traps and barricade entrances to block police interventions.

During the first two weeks of January, the NGO’s hospital located in Drouillard, in Cité Soleil, not far from Bel Air, treated 101 patients with violence-related injuries, according to data communicated to AyiboPost by Thibault Fendler, MSF’s communications officer in Haiti.

Among these victims, 30 women and nine children under the age of fifteen sustained injuries caused by gunfire, explosions, or bladed weapons, revealed Fendler.

By comparison, the center had treated 70 patients during the entire month of December 2025.

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To cope with the sharp rise in insecurity in recent years, residents of certain neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince have mobilized. They erect barricades and form self-defense brigades.

Homeowners fear harboring gang members and have grown suspicious. Any newcomer is therefore closely scrutinized, according to testimonies collected by AyiboPost. In this context, citizens are often denied rental housing for no apparent reason.

The family mentioned above had lived for years on Saint-Martin Street in Bel Air. After being turned away in Delmas and Clercine, they tried their luck in Tabarre.

Promises from landlords to call back were never kept. “Sometimes we had to lie about where we came from to avoid being associated with bandits,” the man told AyiboPost.

Faced with this reality, his father had recently shared his fear of moving elsewhere, afraid of being “targeted.” His mother had warned him that the situation had deteriorated in the area the day before the tragedy.

Gunfire was intense, and houses shook from the explosions of kamikaze drones.

Houses destroyed by kamikaze drones during recent operations by Haiti’s national police in Bel Air. Photo taken by a resident of the area.

Houses destroyed by kamikaze drones during recent operations by Haiti’s national police in Bel Air. Photo taken by a resident of the area.

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The National Police operations in Bel Air came one month after internal clashes within the criminal group Viv Ansanm, which left several people dead.
An influential gang member known as Dèdè was killed along with others during those clashes.

Gang leader Kempes Sanon, who controlled Bel Air, was taken to Croix-des-Bouquets before the gang chief Lanmò San Jou for questioning, according to videos circulated on social media.

An inter-gang conflict involving Kempes and Ti Manno, linked to the G9 group, had previously erupted in 2023.

But the coalition of forces under state authority continues its operations in the capital’s downtown area. At a press conference on January 12, police announced the seizure of tear gas canisters, bulletproof vests, communication radios, ammunition boxes, and rifles of various calibers.

The issue of innocent victims was addressed at a press conference on January 20.

The director general of the Haitian National Police, André Jonas Vladimir Paraison, stated that the presence of populations in neighborhoods controlled by armed groups is “ambiguous,” while acknowledging that some people have nowhere else to go.

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On the afternoon of January 7, police stormed the family home of the man cited above in Bel Air.

Officers opened fire on his father and younger brother while all family members were inside the house. Authorities deployed a kamikaze drone that instantly killed the man’s sister, a thirteen-year-old ninth-grade student.

His 21-year-old younger brother, his 32-year-old older brother, and his 51-year-old father—who had come to help with the move—were all killed, and the family home was destroyed by the explosion. The mother, wounded in the arm during the attack, was narrowly saved by neighbors rushing to flee.

First photo top left: Reginald Milord, his father – Second photo top right: Reginald Fils Milord, his younger brother – Third photo bottom left: Milienne Milord, his thirteen-year-old sister – Fourth photo bottom right: Jean Beliote Milord, his thirty-two-year-old brother.

It was an uncle who remained in Haiti who called the man to announce the tragedy. “I was completely disoriented,” said the former student of the Faculty of Ethnology at Haiti’s State University. “They were my only family,” he told AyiboPost. “I felt like my life stopped all at once.”

According to the mother’s testimony, the explosives-laden drone crashed at the rear of the house. “When I left Haiti in 2023, my goal was to help them leave [Bel Air], but it was complicated,” the man said to AyiboPost, before breaking down in tears.

His sister, struck by projectiles, died beneath the rubble of a wall blown apart by the explosion, while the mother—also hit by gunfire—had gone to seek help to lift her up.

According to another man, 58, who has lived in the area since 2013, several houses on Fronts-Forts Street, where major gang leaders reside, were destroyed during police drone attacks. “Not the entire area was attacked by law enforcement,” he said, adding that he fears being killed by police if he tries to leave Bel Air.

According to him, residents have nowhere to go and are forced to stay. “Houses simply collapsed under the force of the drones, and it will be difficult to know how many civilians were killed,” concluded the native of Hinche.

By :Fenel Pélissier & Wethzer Piercin