A massive prison break in Haiti has resulted in the escape of hundreds of inmates and the deaths of at least 25 people, including the prison’s director and a notorious Haitian gang leader named Arnel Joseph.
The prison break occurred Thursday at the Croix-des-Bouquets Civil Prison in the capital of Port-au-Prince. As of late Friday, authorities had recaptured about 60 inmates and were still actively searching for more than 200 others, according to Haiti’s secretary of state for communication, Frantz Exantus.
Gang violence in Haiti has mounted in recent years, and Joseph, the gang leader, had been among the country’s most wanted fugitives before his arrest in 2019. He had been awaiting trial on charges of murder, rape and kidnapping.
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