Many prisoners have been freed after armed gangs broke into the main jail in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
One local journalist informed BBC News that the great bulk of the approximately 4,000 prisoners detained there have now escaped.
Gang members accused of being involved in President Jovenel Moïse’s 2021 assassination were among those in custody.
The poorest nation in the Americas, Haiti, has seen an increase in violence in recent years. 80% of Port-au-Prince is controlled by gangs that want to remove Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
The prime minister visited Nairobi on Thursday to talk about dispatching a multinational security force to Haiti under Kenyan leadership, which sparked the most recent wave of violence.
President William Ruto of Kenya announced on Friday that he and Mr. Henry had reached a deal and were attempting to expedite the deployment.
The UN reported in January that more than 8,400 people—more than twice as many as in 2022—were victims of gang violence in Haiti in the previous year, including murders, injuries, and kidnappings.
Since the assassination of President Moïse in 2021, there has been a great deal of violence. Elections have not been held since 2016 and he has not been replaced.
Elections were scheduled as part of an agreement, and Mr. Henry, who was not elected, was supposed to resign by February 7th, but that didn’t happen.
Unrest in Port-au-Prince has intensified since he departed for Kenya, with gang boss Jimmy Chérizier (also known as “Barbecue”) announcing a planned coup to remove the prime minister.
“We are all together, the armed groups in the capital and the armed groups in the province towns,” declared the ex-policeman, who is believed to be responsible for multiple killings in Port-au-Prince.
Four police officers have died and five have been injured in a spate of gunshots that have occurred in the capital.
The French embassy in Haiti issued an advisory over the weekend cautioning against visiting the city. The police union in Haiti has requested military assistance in fortifying the prison.