Gangs return to Haiti slum after quake prison break

[Turborama]

Source: Reuters

Heavily armed gang members who once ran Haiti's largest slum like warlords have returned with a vengeance since Tuesday's earthquake damaged the National Penitentiary allowing 3,000 inmates to break out.

The pacification of Cite Soleil had been one of President Rene Prevail's few undisputed achievements since taking office in 2006, until the quake devastated Port-au-Prince.

"It's only natural that they would come back here. This has always been their stronghold," said a Haitian police officer in the teeming warren of shacks, alleys and open sewers that is home to more than 300,000 people. He and other policemen, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about the volatile situation in Cite Soleil, said notorious armed gangs had been making their presence felt here since the quake.

Cite Sole's gang leaders are larger-than-life criminals. The stuff of urban legend and popular Haitian rap songs, they are now seen as a breed apart from other Haitians in that they alone benefited from the Tuesday's disaster. Mounted on motorcycles, and brandishing assault rifles and guns thought to have been stripped from prison guards during the quake, the gang members include one stone-cold killer known only by the street name "Blade."

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Word on the street is that they swept down on the rubble of Haiti's collapsed Justice Ministry on Saturday morning and set it ablaze to destroy any records of their incarceration or criminal history.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60G0CO20100117

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Air filled with the stench of rotting corpses and 3,000 hardcore criminals prowling the streets, it's hardly surprising there's a huge exodus from the city into the countryside.