SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico —The United Nations reported on Friday that a strong gang has taken control of several communities in central Haiti in recent weeks, killing at least 69 people and forcing authorities to abandon several police stations.

In the Artibonite Valley, there has been an increase in violence that authorities attribute to a local gang known as "Baz Gran Grif," which roughly translates to "Big Claw," inflicting injuries on an additional 83 people.

The gang has "established a climate of terror, marked by looting, assassinations, kidnappings, destruction, extortion, hijacking of goods and trucks and acts of rape on young girls and women," according to the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti, also known as BINUH.

The speed with which the gang has expanded its operations into new areas and the fleeing of police in numerous communities, according to BINUH, are both alarming.

In late January, the gang is accused of murdering seven members of the Haitian National Police in a single day as part of ongoing attacks that led to one hospital that serves 700,000 people in the area suspending all operations a week earlier. The U.N. reported that businesses and public transportation have slowed while schools are still closed.


With gangs reportedly controlling 60% of the capital, gang activity had previously been largely restricted to Port-au-Prince, but it has since spread and grown more violent and powerful elsewhere.

According to U.N. officials, thousands of residents of the central Liancourt, Verrettes, Petite Rivière de l'Artibonite, and Estère communities have emigrated to other areas in order to escape the ongoing violence.

This cycle of violence must end, according to BINUH. "We implore the authorities to take all necessary precautions to safeguard the residents of the area as well as their property."

Prime Minister Ariel Henry is still pleading for the sending of foreign troops, as he did when the violence in Haiti's central region increased in October. Instead, the international community has chosen to impose sanctions and send supplies like military hardware.

Last month, U.N. representatives reaffirmed that since President Jovenel Mosé's murder in 2021, gang violence in Haiti has increased to a level unseen in many years.