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UN official warns millions of Haitians ‘being held hostage’ amid a surge in gang-related violence in the Haitian capital.
At least 150 people have been killed in Port-au-Prince over the past week, the United Nations says, as the Haitian capital reels from a surge in gang violence.
In a statement on Wednesday, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said more than half of the deaths – at least 55 percent – came “from exchanges of fire between gang members and police”.
Another 92 people were injured in the violence, and about 20,000 others have been forcibly displaced from their homes.
“Port-au-Prince’s estimated four million people are practically being held hostage as gangs now control all the main roads in and out of the capital,” Volker Turk, the high commissioner, said in the statement.
“The latest upsurge in violence in Haiti’s capital is a harbinger of worse to come. The gang violence must be promptly halted. Haiti must not be allowed to descend further into chaos.”
