photo courtesy of AP
Former Senator Yvon Buissereth of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor was found dead in an affluent neighborhood outside Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. On August 7, Commissioner Jacques Lafontant recounted the events to AP. Yvon was found burned along with his unnamed nephew, both dead the day before the press release.
In Laboule, Yvon was last known to be alive and driving in a government car and was later discovered set on fire inside the vehicle. Lafontant said that the perpetrators of the heinous crime were likely the Ti Makak gang, who’s currently vying for control with another local gang and leading to rising violence in the area. Just last year, near where the incident occurred, the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated.
“It was a terrible incident,” Lafontant told the Associated Press. He claimed that the violence in the area has only gotten more ferocious after President Moise was killed last year near the capital. He described that the uncle-nephew duo was found dead on the road, notorious for being dangerous but becoming more and more frequent, having claimed many lives on the stretch before because of its placement between areas controlled by the two separate gangs.
Haiti’s prime minister took to Twitter to condemn the actions of the accused gang responsible for killing Yvon and his nephew in Laboule.
“His assassins, as well as all the other criminals who sow mourning in the country, will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and must respond for their ignominious acts before justice,” he wrote in a translated post.
Comparatively, Haiti has a 20% greater rate of criminality than North America, putting it at the spot of 2nd most dangerous country in terms of violent crimes in the Caribbean.