A gang kills several people in a raid on a small town in central Haiti, an official says

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Gang members attacked a small town in central Haiti early Thursday, killing several people, a government official said.

The total number of victims in Pont-Sondé was not yet available, said Venson François, a government prosecutor based in the nearby coastal town of Saint-Marc, but he called the attack a “massacre” in an interview with Radio Caraïbes.

Dozens of people crowded around a hospital in Saint-Marc where the injured were taken, with one man telling reporters that local authorities are not doing enough to protect people.

The attack in Pont-Sondé was blamed on the Grand Grif gang. It operates in the central Artibonite region, and experts have described it as one of Haiti’s cruelest gangs.

While most of the gang violence is concentrated in the capital of Port-au-Prince, it has spread in recent years to the Artibonite region.