Guard shot dead as 172 inmates stage prison break in Haiti

AT LEAST 172 inmates escaped a Haitian prison near the capital Port-au-Prince during an armed mutiny, killing a guard and escaping with police weapons, local media reported.

Heurtelou Paul Colson, the manager of Arcahaie prison, told Le Nouvelliste newspaper the guard was shot dead and two other police officers were wounded.

One prisoner climbed over a wall and fell to his death, while two other detainees were injured and in hospital.

Mr Colson said Yvener Carelus, who was serving time for kidnapping, was the mastermind behind the escape. He was arrested.

“He planned the escape from the inside with a few accomplices,” Camille Edouard Junior, the justice minister, told the newspaper, adding that security was being boosted at prisons across the country.

Pierre Esperance, a human rights activist, noted that the prison had housed “a lot of big-name prisoners, major criminals sentenced for theft, rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking, etc”.

Authorities have launched a manhunt for the escapees, with police checking all roads in the Arcadins coastal zone near Arcahaie prison.

“The government strongly condemns the incidents that took place at Arcahaie prison, targeted in a mutiny by heavily armed individuals,” the office of interim prime minister Enex Jean-Charles, who also serves as defence minister, said in a statement. It added he had asked the justice minister to “take all necessary measures to remedy this unacceptable situation”.