VIDEO. “Welcome to the 103 Zonbi”, cannon fodder for gang leaders in Haiti

Since the assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, Haiti has descended into endless chaos. THE March 11, 2024, Prime Minister Ariel Henry had to resign under pressure from gangs and part of the population. The capital Port-au-Prince is 80% controlled by criminal groups.

In this extract from a report to be seen in “Envoyé Spécial” on March 14, we are in the Bel Air district, right in the city center. If the streets are practically deserted in the middle of the day, it is because the territory is under the control of a gang. His henchmen accepted the presence of the magazine’s journalists.

In the land where bandits live

“Welcome ! Enter the land where bandits live”, says one of them. Most have their faces hidden by a scarf, a mask printed with a skull, or a simple t-shirt wrapped around their head. That day, they go on patrol, bottle of rum in hand, drunk with violence.

“I’m not afraid of dying. I already consider myself a zombie.”

A member of the “103 Zonbi” of Port-au-Prince

in “Special Envoy”

These young people who call themselves “the 103 Zonbi” are mostly no more than twenty years old, but already have a lot of blood on their hands… They serve as cannon fodder for the leader of a criminal gang. Whether he sends them to attack another neighborhood or outright overthrow the government, the “zonbi” do it. “It’s the only thing this country offers us, se justifies one of them, masked by his black hood. Most of the young people who have not yet left Haiti, they are like us, they have taken up arms.”

A street kidnapping gone wrong

For gangs, controlling territory means securing income through different types of racketeering, starting with kidnapping. In Haiti, anyone can be kidnapped. And in fact, barely had the “Special Envoy” team left the Bel Air district when they witnessed a scene of incredible, yet almost daily, violence. A man lies on the ground, hit by several stray bullets in front of his wife. A street kidnapping gone wrong…

Still alive, the victim was evacuated aboard a collective taxi. The police intervene and shoot to disperse the crowd. “Before, we didn’t hear gunshots here, it’s normally hot at the bottom of the city. Today, it’s everywhere”deplores a local resident.

Excerpt from “Haiti: a country in the hands of gangs”, a report to see in “Special Envoy” on March 14 2024.

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