Last month, the United Nations reported that 76% of people killed in Haiti from April to June were dispatched by the Haitian National Police (PNH) and the paramilitary “brigadier” and military contractor forces hired by the Washington-installed unelected government.
No soldiers of the Viv Ansanm (Live Together) Political Party, established by a coalition of Port-au-Prince’s armed neighborhood groups, were among those killed, according to the group’s leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier. “During that period, the Haitian government through its police and local and foreign hired forces killed only civilians,” he said.
One third of the 1,520 killed – over 500 people – were snuffed out, the report says, by drones, which are operated by Erik Prince’s Vectus Global mercenaries. They were hired by de facto Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, according to one of Prince’s former partners.
Last week saw two bloody incidents in Port-au-Prince.
The first murder happened on the morning of Tue., Sep. 2 near the K-Naval Market at 228, Delmas 33. A policeman nicknamed “Tiponyèt” (Little Fist) killed an amateur soccer player and enthusiast nicknamed “Galaxy ti bout bet” in the busy commercial area. The cop, who is infamous for his summary executions and brutality, then cut off Galaxy’s feet and, with the help of local brigadiers, burned his body to a crisp.
Then on Sat., Sep. 6, a crowded public camionette or tap tap crashed into a building at Rue Nicolas in Bas Peu-de-Chose, near Carrefour Feuilles. Three men died at the scene, one with his leg shorn off at the knee inside the back of the vehicle. The tap tap driver was also grievously wounded with a deep wound to his throat below his chin. He later died from the loss of blood from his wound at a hospital in Fontamara.
Several other tap tap passengers were also reported to have been seriously wounded, but Haïti Liberté was unable to learn how many or if any others later died.
Pierre Espérance, the director of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH), had originally asserted that the tap tap had been hit by an explosive drone, which would have been flown by Prince’s mercenaries on Fils-Aimé’s “Task Force.”
But Julio Joseph, a passenger who was injured in the crash, said that Espérance’s version of events was false and that no drone was involved. According to Haiti Libre, Joseph said that the tap tap “was shot at and not hit by a suicide drone, before crashing into a wall” because there had been “clashes” between the PNH and armed groups.
Nonetheless, Haïti Liberté has received unconfirmed reports and videos of other indiscriminate drone attacks in Port-au-Prince, presumably carried out by Prince’s mercenaries, which would be reminiscent of the U.S. government bombings in the Middle East, like when the Obama administration on Dec. 12, 2013 blew up a Yemeni wedding party, killing 12 men and wounding 15 others, or in March 2025, when the Trump administration bombed a prayer circle of Yemeni Muslim worshipers, killing several dozens. These are just two out of many such examples of indiscriminate violence against non-combatants by U.S. forces, their allies, or their mercenaries.
Could Haiti become another Gaza, where Israel, with U.S. support, wantonly kills Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children? The rising civilian death toll in Haiti is ominous.
