The Gangs All Here

It doesn’t get all that much coverage these days, but Haiti, which has seen its share of socio-political crises over the years could be experiencing its worst. The country has been taken over by gangs. John Lee Anderson in The New Yorker: Haiti Held Hostage. “In a nation of twelve million people, there have been at least a dozen massacres by gangs fighting over turf, killing more than a thousand Haitians last year alone. Women are routinely raped and men murdered; many of the victims are burned alive in their homes. Since the beginning of the year, according to a U.N. report, another thousand people have been kidnapped, and at least two thousand killed, including thirty-four police officers. Last fall, a gangster known as Barbecue took over the city’s main fuel port for nearly two months, causing devastating shortages of gas, food, and water, with half of Haiti’s population afflicted by acute hunger.”