Move FM Global News

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Hundreds of children and adults sheltered this weekend at a high school in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, to escape shootings between rival gangs in their neighborhood, which has caused many deaths and destroyed homes.

Some 315 people had taken refuge in the Saint-Louis de Gonzague school, which is in the Delmas district neighboring the violence-wracked Cite Soleil neighborhood, said Francisco Seriphin, general coordinator for the religious community group Kizito.

Jean Michelet, a 16-year-old who said he was wounded on the day that the gang battles erupted in early July, added, “We need a lot of help. I was home on the day the war started. It was a lot of shooting. A bullet went through the roof and it hit me in the head,” as reported by the Associated Press.

A nun took Michelet to a hospital to have the injury treated, he added, claiming many people have been killed.

One year after the unsolved assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, gang violence in Haiti has worsened, and many people have fled the country, which seems to have moved into economic and social free-fall.

Last week, the UN humanitarian affairs office reported that 99 people were killed in the fighting in Cite Soleil, and UN humanitarian agencies have said that it is too dangerous to help people trapped in the neighborhood.