Eight inmates escaped Friday night from a prison in northern Haiti and four others were killed trying, police said, assuring they had already recaptured six of the eight escapees.

After the gangs escalated their attacks in late February, eventually leading to the resignation of the country’s prime minister, more than 4,600 prisoners, according to United Nations figures, have escaped from prisons in the impoverished Caribbean nation in deep crisis.

“Of the eight fugitives, six have already been arrested,” said Leonel Joseph, a police spokesman in the country’s northwestern sector, a comparatively safer area than the capital Port-au-Prince, where violence is raging, during a press conference. violence of thugs.

He added that police stormed the prison, in Port-de-Peix, on the country’s northern coast, and killed four inmates as they tried to escape.

The prisoners who escaped were in a cell with a total of 37 inmates, he clarified.

As part of the operation in pursuit of the fugitives, the police and judicial authorities demanded that the residents of Port-de-Peix be locked in their homes. Gunshots were heard in the town, a resident told AFP.

The 37 inmates in that cell had all been convicted of violent crimes and were considered dangerous, judge Zaire Pierre told the capital’s Magik 9 radio station.

The official spoke of the negligence of the prison staff explaining the reasons that led to the bloody incident.

“A guard opened the cell door to help an inmate who was feeling unwell and at that moment fellow inmates took advantage to attack him (…) and escape,” said Mr. Pierre, adding that two prison staff members were being investigated .

He also said that there were not enough guards at the particular prison because their branch had gone on strike.

Haiti has been plagued by chronic instability and crisis, political and security, for decades. But from the end of February, gangs, already ravaging and controlling entire sectors of the country, banded together and began to launch coordinated attacks against strategic locations in the capital, with the publicly declared goal of overthrowing the then de facto prime minister, Ariel Henri.

After the attacks began, “more than 4,600 prisoners escaped from Port-au-Prince’s two main prisons, at least 22 police stations and other police buildings were looted or set on fire, and 19 police officers were killed or injured,” the UN summarized in mid-April. .

Former Prime Minister Henri officially resigned last week and a transition council has taken over, which is called upon to promote above all the restoration of public order.