Nine killed in Haiti gang attack

PORT-AU-PRINCE:

Gunmen in Haiti killed nine people in the latest spasm of violence by the Caribbean nation's powerful gangs, a community leader said Wednesday.

The gangsters attacked Tuesday evening in the town of Petite-Riviere in central Haiti, Bertide Horace, a spokeswoman for a community association in the surrounding Artibonite region, told AFP.

Two of the fatalities were adolescents and the attackers kidnapped an undisclosed number of people and set fire to houses, Horace said, adding: "We counted nine bodies."

Video footage of the bodies circulated on social media, as the attack angered residents of the town.

The assault was seen as revenge by gangsters against locals who had helped officers retake control of a police headquarters, she added.

Haiti's powerful gangs control most of the capital city Port-au-Prince and commit random acts of kidnapping, rape and other extreme violence despite the deployment of a Kenyan-led force that is trying to help the outgunned local police restore some semblance of order.