A police officer was killed Monday, March 22 by colleagues in Port-au-Prince, in a context of heightened tensions within the Haitian police, the UN deploring a new act of
"fratricidal violence"
.
Read also: Haiti: several thousand demonstrators against a return of the dictatorship
The United Nations Office in Haiti (Binuh)
"is saddened by the news of the death of an officer of the PNH
(National Police of Haiti, Editor's note)
on March 22, 2021, killed according to the first elements of the investigation by colleagues, ”
he said on Twitter.
"These acts of fratricidal violence weaken the cohesion essential to the police so that the institution can fulfill its mission to serve and protect,"
added the local UN mission, calling for peaceful solutions to be sought.
Without providing details, the Haitian police spokesperson confirmed to AFP on Monday afternoon that a police officer had been shot dead and another injured.
A protest group of police officers, dubbed "Fantom 509", recently demonstrated to denounce the death of agents during a tragic anti-gang operation.
On March 12, four police officers were killed in an intervention in the poor neighborhood of Village de Dieu, where law enforcement had suffered the additional humiliation of gang members stealing their equipment. .
While an armored vehicle has since been recovered by the police, the bodies of the killed and maimed officers are still missing.
Read also: Haiti: unrest in Port-au-Prince
This situation has fueled the anger of the Fantom 509 group, some of whose members crisscross the capital on motorcycles, seizing vehicle keys that they place across the main roads.
Last week, members of Fantom 509 forcibly released several police officers from a police station where they were being held for reasons still unknown.
"The speech and actions of Fantom 509 reject human rights, democracy, the separation of powers, the rule of law, respect for discipline and hierarchy within the PNH"
, lamented the Je Klere foundation, in a report released Monday.
This Haitian human rights organization wonders
"if the Haitian national police would be crossed by a fascist current"
.
