Ten detainees and a police officer were killed in Haiti on Friday during an escape attempt from the Croix de Busque prison on the outskirts of the capital Port-au-Prince, a police spokesman said Monday night.
“The death toll has risen to eleven, including a police officer,” Gary DeRozier told AFP.
“Three police officers were seriously injured, their condition made it necessary to transport them to Cuba,” he added.
At noon on Friday, an unidentified number of prisoners in possession of firearms tried to escape the country’s second-largest penitentiary, taking “three police officers and a nurse hostage,” Gary DeRozier said.
Moving inside the high-security prison, the detainees seized three more weapons, including an assault rifle, from an office.
Special police forces were called in to intervene; exchanges of fire ensued.
Four weapons that had entered the prison illegally were confiscated, as were the three that were stolen from the prison arsenal.
“A police officer has been placed in solitary confinement on the orders of the central police department and an investigation is underway to determine the circumstances under which the weapons were taken into custody,” said a spokesman for the Haitian police force.
In February 2021, more than 400 detainees had escaped from the same prison at noon. Twenty-five people had been killed at the time, including its director.
This mass escape was made possible by the acute shortage of prison staff and guards and the synergy of some of them, according to the findings of an investigation carried out by an Haitian human rights organization.
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