The escape of more than 400 prisoners in Haiti leaves at least 25 dead

A prisoner is recaptured by an officer outside the Croix-des-Bouquets prison, in an image from this February 25.Dieu Nalio Chery / AP

An escape of more than 400 prisoners last Thursday caused the death of 25 people, including the director of the prison located on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince (Haiti), authorities announced this Friday.

Among the dead were some ordinary citizens "who were killed by the prisoners during their escape," the authorities added.

“Before yesterday's incident, there were 1,542 prisoners in the Croix-des-Bouquets prison.

The count carried out this Friday morning shows us that there are 1,125 ″, announced Frantz Exantus, Secretary of State for Communication, during a press conference.

"Twenty-five people died, including six prisoners and Inspector Paul Hector Joseph, who was in charge of the prison," Exantus added.

One of the escaped inmates who died was Arnel Joseph, one of Haiti's top gang leaders, shot to death Friday during a police check 120 kilometers north of Croix-des-Bouquets prison.

“Arnel Joseph died while attacking a police patrol that had stopped the motorcycle on which he was riding.

The police retaliated and Arnel Joseph is dead, ”explained Exantus.

Accused of being the head of one of Haiti's main criminal networks, Joseph was arrested in July 2019. Josehp had tried, unsuccessfully, to escape for the first time from the Croix-des-Bouquets prison in July 2020, a breakout that he had announced through a video posted on social media a few days earlier.

Joseph, who was serving a sentence for murder, had previously escaped from another Port-au-Prince prison twice in 2010 and 2017.

Opened in 2012, the Croix-des-Bouquets high-security prison, built with Canadian funds, has a maximum capacity of 872 inmates, although on Thursday, before the escape, the population was almost double.