Another mass prison break in Haiti

On August 16 (local time), Haitian police said they were mobilizing forces to search for prisoners who escaped en masse from a prison in the city of Saint-Marc on the central coast of the country.

In a brief statement, police asked the public to cooperate and report any suspicious sightings, but did not provide further details on the number of escaped inmates.

The Saint-Marc city government said the prison is holding 502 inmates.

Haiti's Le Nouvelliste newspaper reported that prison staff had gone on strike to demand better treatment, and quoted government commissioner Vension François as saying he feared a riot, not ruling out the possibility that prison guards were complicit in the incident.

Videos posted on social media showed people climbing over the walls as smoke billowed from inside the prison’s barbed-wire-enclosed walls. Residents also reported hearing gunshots and loud explosions.

This is the third prison break in Haiti this year. In early March, armed gangs freed thousands of inmates after storming the country's two largest prisons in the capital Port-au-Prince, setting off a series of attacks that led to the resignation of then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

Prisons in Haiti are overcrowded and pretrial detention can last for years due to a limited justice system.

Last year, only 1,892 of the country’s 11,816 prisoners were sentenced, according to the United Nations. Prisoners also face severe food and water shortages, which led to the deaths of 185 inmates in 2023, mostly from malnutrition-related diseases.