Farming communities in Haiti’s Lower Artibonite region continued to come under renewed attacks Tuesday as armed men aligned with the Gran Grif gang swept through several rural towns on the outskirts of the city of Marchand-Dessalines, firing weapons and forcing residents to flee.

Videos circulating on social media showed young men carrying automatic weapons, dressed in shorts and backpacks, moving through dusty country roads as they opened fire in the localities of Martin, Bwajou, Pont-Jou and Baraj.

The assault marked the third consecutive day of attacks in central Haiti, where people were burned alive inside their homes and shot to death by members of Gran Grif, which is based in the town of Savien. The massacre started around 2 a.m. Sunday in the locality of Pon Benwa before the armed gang members advanced to Jean-Denis, where a self-defense coalition attempted unsuccessfuly to resist.

Security experts say the attacks appear to be highly coordinated: gangs blocked and barricaded roads, and in one instance dismantled a metal bridge linking Marchand Dessalines to Petite Rivière de l’Artibonite to prevent police access. In the case of Jean Denis, there had been warnings for weeks that an attack was imminent, the National Human Rights Defense Network said in a report to be published next week on the violence.

“The armed criminals could not accept that the community of Jean Denis had been resisting them for several years,” the Port-au-Prince human rights group said.

While police confirmed at least 16 fatalities based on bodies brought to the morgue and the United Nations said it has received reports of deaths as high as 80 dead, the National Human Rights Defense Network said its preliminary figures put the death toll at least 70.

The number is based on accounts collected from residents in Jean Denis as well as officials and community leaders.

“Some victims were recovered and buried by their families that same day, while others were taken to the morgue,” the report said. “In addition, more than 30 people were wounded, with some receiving care at the hospital.”

Assault on Marchand Dessalines

The attack on the third communal section of Marchand Dessalines on Tuesday came before dawn, after Gran Grif members withdrew from Jean-Denis the day before. They repositioned themselves in the Pont Benoît area, where the bridge was destroyed, and gang members reportedly fired numerous rounds.

By late Tuesday afternoon as least five more people had been killed, said Bertide Horace, a community activist in the region who spent the day fielding desperate pleas for help from residents fleeing burning homes and stepping over dead bodies.

“We’ve been running since this morning,” a resident of the town of Pont-Jou said. “The Savien gang is burning houses.”

Another person said a young man named Figaro had been shot in the head, and they couldn’t get him to the hospital.

As panicked residents in the rural outskirts fought to escape Gran Grif’s tightening grip, videos showed heavily armed members of another allied gang, Kokorat San Ras, walking into the center of Marchand Dessalines and tossing money in the air as desperate Haitians and children tried gathering the cash.

Months of relative calm

The renewed violence in Haiti’s breadbasket comes after roughly four months of relative calm — and as the country prepares to receive the first military contingents of the U.N.-authorized Gang Suppression Force.

Backed by Washington, the new 5,500-member force is expected to be more lethal and better equipped than the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission that’s been deployed to Haiti since June 2024 and had been stationed in the Artibonite region.

The situation in the Artibonite underscores not only the scale of the violence awaiting the new international force, but the challenges that continue to dog Haiti’s fragmented security landscape and as Haitian authorities continue to be criticized over failing to act on the advance warnings about attacks.

In its report, the National Human Rights Network said the new police commissioner for St. Marc, Livenston Gauthier, said he had deployed three armored vehicles on Sunday and two again on Monday. But gang members returned after the vehicles left. According to the police commissioner, he needs more powerful weapons, armored vehicles, air support and more experienced officers. The police also need surveillance and kamikaze drones, as well as mechanics to maintain and repair armored vehicles.

“According to information received, several Kenyan armored vehicles are out of service due to a simple battery failure,” the human-rights group said. “Mechanics must travel from Port-au-Prince to repair a basic battery issue in an armored vehicle stationed in Saint-Marc. Similarly, for the Kenyan forces on the ground to take action alongside the police, the order must come from Port-au-Prince.”

Blurred lines

Another problem facing the new anti-gang force: the blurring of lines between criminal armed groups and so-called self-defense groups.

The attack in Jean Denis is believed to have been led by a commander known as “Ti Kenken,” a former leader of the Coalition des Révolutionnaires pour Sauver l’Artibonite, also known as the Jean Denis Coalition. A vigilante group, it was founded to protect residents from criminal gangs.

In October, Ti Kenken reportedly defected to Gran Grif, aligning himself with leader Luckson Elan. Prior to that, the coalition under Ti Kenken had been linked to several mass killings, including a massacre in May 2025 that left at least 55 residents dead in the town of Préval.

A video on social media shows him wearing a red bandana and shirt frantically shooting alongside another heavily armed man.

The episode involving Ti Kenken represents “one of the clearest cases of a vigilante commander integrating into a criminal group,” said Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, director of the Haiti Observatory at the non-governmental organization Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

“His reported role in this latest offensive may reflect the operational consequences of such defections: intimate knowledge of terrain, local networks, and rival structures,” Le Cour Grandmaison said. “Vigilante brigades are often viewed as essential partners for holding territory and supporting the police—but what happens when allegiances shift?

Le Cour Grandmaison said the changes pose direct challenges for both the Haiti National Police and the Gang Suppression Force, particularly in the Artibonite, where the situation remains volatile.

“The Artibonite remains a central hotspot of violence, largely under armed group control, yet still lacks a coherent, territorially grounded response strategy,” Le Cour Grandmaison said.

Vigilante groups under scrutiny

On the increase since 2023, vigilante groups like the Jean Denis Coalition are increasingly coming under scrutiny. A recent report by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project found that the Jean Denis Coalition illustrates “the thin line between vigilantism and criminal activity,” with some accounts describing it as a community defense force and others as a group engaged in extortion and attacks on civilians.

Maria Fernanda Arocha, a co-author of the report, said while so-called self-defense groups have managed to push gangs back temporarily, it hasn’t reduced the overall harm to civilians, who are often targeted as part of a cycle of brutal retaliatory violence.

With more than 1.45 million people already forced to flee their homes by gang violence, the latest attacks have added to the toll. At least 5,200 people have been newly displaced, the International Organization for Migration said. More than half of those who fled the areas of Jean Denis following Sunday and Monday’s armed attacks, the group said, took refuge in the city of Dessalines, which came under attack on Tuesday — causing people to have to flee once more.

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