Mourners file into a church in Haiti where gangs killed dozens of people in latest rampage

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — More than 100 mourners attended funerals Wednesday inside a church where gangs recently executed more than 30 people in an attack that shook the troubled country.

The funerals were held for two brothers and three of their cousins at a church in Kenscoff, nestled in the mountains above Haiti’s capital.

The night of Aug. 23, gangs attacked the once-peaceful farming community, killing 47 people and kidnapping more than 50 others. It was one of the largest mass kidnappings in Haiti in recent years.

Several days after the abductions, a gang leader agreed to release six children and seven women following an intervention by community leaders and UNICEF.

Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights Office, said some 150 heavily armed gang members participated in the attack. She said they first killed 13 people who tried to flee and then pursued 50 others who had sought refuge inside the church where the funerals were held Thursday. Gang members executed 22 Haitians in the church courtyard and 12 others behind the church, she said.

Patrique Saint-Hilaire, an official with Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency in Kenscoff, told The Associated Press that the government plans to help support the families who lost loved ones.

So far, 17 of the 47 people killed have been buried.

“Kenscoff is still under red alert,” he said. “People are very traumatized.”

Friends and family of those killed have organized protests and vigils, blaming police for the attack. Haiti’s National Police has said it is investigating the attack and whether it was “due to complicity or negligence.”

Mourners declined to talk to journalists on Thursday as anger over the killings persists. After the service, some people attacked a couple of journalists, including an AP photographer who received medical care.

The latest attack comes as Haiti prepares for the first general elections in more than a decade.

Gangs control an estimated 70% of Port-au-Prince and swaths of land in Haiti’s central region and beyond, and they are also seeking to seize territory in Kenscoff.

Gang violence has displaced a record of nearly 1.5 million people across Haiti, where more than 3,050 people were reported killed from January to June, according to the U.N.