Two rival gang leaders signed a truce to end armed conflict in Haiti’s largest shantytown, a community leader said on Thursday.
Haiti has long been rocked by gang violence, but conditions sharply worsened at the end of February when armed groups launched attacks in Port-au-Prince to overthrow then-Haitian prime minister Ariel Henry.
The gangs control 80 percent of the Caribbean country’s main roads and are accused of murders, rapes, looting and kidnapping for ransom.
Photo: Reuters
Under the agreement between leaders of the G9 and G-Pep groups, roadblocks in the Cite Soleil shantytown of about 300,000 inhabitants were taken down, said Pastor Jean Enock Joseph, an influential figure in the commune.
“A new stage has just been reached,” Joseph said.
However, a similar truce had been signed in July last year before falling apart a few weeks later, he added.
Like much of Port-au-Prince, Cite Soleil residents were unable to move freely in the shantytown — divided into zones controlled by the rival gangs — for fear of being caught in crossfire.
The G9 and G-Pep gangs have not clashed since February, when they joined a coalition fomenting coordinated attacks to overthrow Henry, but they had maintained the divisions within Cite Soleil until Wednesday.
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