Sounds like a comic book or some Hollywood movie, an earthquake freeing prisoners, if only. Bruno Waterfield writes in the Telegraph:
Haitian authorities conceded they had lost their battle to maintain order in Port-au-Prince after the leaders of the city’s crime gangs reclaimed their old turf since being freed when the national prison collapsed last week.
The gangsters have stepped into the law and order vacuum, notably in the sprawling shanty town of Cite Soleil which they dominated before being locked up following police operations supported by United Nations troops over the last three years.
“Even as we are digging bodies out of buildings, they are trying to attack our officers,” said Aristide Rosemond a Cite Soleil police inspector.
The Haitian authorities, already weak and reliant on UN forces, are now crippled by heavy casualties and widespread destruction of infrastructure while international peacekeepers are focused on disaster relief.
Jean-Max Bellerive, Haiti’s prime minister, has despaired of the state’s ability to tackle a new post-earthquake crime wave sweeping his country’s devastated capital.
Read More: Telegraph
