A massive gang assault on the Kenscoff neighborhood near Port-au-Prince has killed at least 47 people and kidnapped over 50 others, marking one of Haiti's worst attacks in recent years.
By Adam Makins · 
The hills above Port-au-Prince have become a graveyard. On Sunday, armed gang members attacked the once-peaceful community of Kenscoff, leaving at least 47 people dead and more than 50 kidnapped in what appears to be one of Haiti’s largest mass abductions in recent years. The violence shattered any remaining illusions that the Caribbean nation’s security situation was stabilizing.
Women wept at the attack sites. Children were among the dead. At least 22 victims were executed inside a church compound where they had sought refuge. The gangs didn’t just kill and kidnap, either. They torched homes, destroyed livelihoods, and left trauma etched into every survivor’s memory.
Marc Paul, a 42-year-old resident, found himself running over corpses to escape. His brother, stepmother, stepfather, and two cousins were taken. His 16-year-old niece was kidnapped and raped before managing her escape. This wasn’t his family’s first encounter with gang violence either. They’d already lost their home in a January 2025 attack. But Sunday was different. Worse.
The gang leader, identified as Izo 2 (also known as “Didi”), posted a chilling video threatening Vladimir Paraison, Haiti’s National Police director. The message was clear: harm any gang members, and all hostages die.
Romain Le Cour, head of the Haiti Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, recognized this as a psychological trap. “If forces don’t act, they’ve failed to protect them; if they do and hostages die, the gangs will blame the state,” he explained. Either way, the government loses. Either way, the gangs win.
Young Kenson Paul, 17, managed to escape and now worries constantly. “They have not called us to let us know what they want,” he said. The uncertainty compounds the terror.
This wasn’t random violence. Kenscoff sits in the hills overlooking Haiti’s capital, offering gangs a crucial vantage point. Control this territory, and you control access to the upscale community of Pétion-Ville and alternate routes connecting Port-au-Prince to the south. The gangs are playing chess, not checkers.
Experts suggest multiple motives. The attack could force Haiti’s already-stretched police and UN-backed gang suppression force to spread their limited resources even thinner. It could be a message ahead of Haiti’s December general elections, the first in over a decade. Most provocatively, it’s a demonstration of power: “When we choose to attack, we can, and we will succeed.”
What makes this particularly alarming is that security operations had actually reduced violence in Kenscoff by 66% between January and August. The improvement was real. But it also left the area strategically valuable and, ultimately, vulnerable to gangs seeking to expand beyond Port-au-Prince’s central areas into less protected rural communities.
Kenscoff is just the latest wound in Haiti’s hemorrhaging security crisis. Armed men control roughly 70% of Port-au-Prince. Gang violence has displaced 1.5 million people. From January through June alone, more than 3,050 people were killed. Nearly 800 rapes were reported in a single quarter, with 87% classified as collective rapes.
Kidnappings are spiraling. The reported cases jumped more than 40% in the second quarter compared to the first. But that figure represents only a fraction of actual abductions. Families often negotiate directly with kidnappers rather than involve police, fearing reprisals or delays.
The numbers are staggering, but they risk becoming abstractions. Behind each statistic is someone’s brother, someone’s niece, someone’s entire future stolen.
Kenscoff Mayor Jean Massillon said the right things about eradicating gangs and bringing peace. But the reality is more complicated. Haiti’s police are investigating potential complicity or negligence. International missions are deployed but stretched thin. The government faces a question that might determine its future: how do you negotiate with criminals who hold your citizens hostage while threatening to execute them?
The attack on Kenscoff reveals a state that cannot protect its own people, and a criminal underworld that grows bolder with each successful assault, each hostage taken, each threat delivered on social media for all to see. Can political will and international support actually turn this around before the gangs completely consume what remains of Haiti’s stability?
Source: NPR
