The Association of Haitian Women in Boston, the capital and largest city in the state of Massachusetts (United States of America) condemns the massacre of August 20, 2022 in Croix-des-Bouquets (northeast of Port-au-Prince), during which two young women Sherwood Sondje and Sarhadjie Desanclos and their mother Josette Desanclos were murdered and then burned by bandits of the gang of Cite Doudoune, an offshoot of the powerful criminal group called “400 Mawozo. At least six people were killed in this carnage perpetrated by the armed gangs that control much of the Haitian capital.
“We stand in solidarity with the Haitian people and call on the Haitian government to conduct real investigations to apprehend the criminals of “400 Mawozo” so that they can answer for their actions before the courts,” said the Association of Haitian Women in Boston (AFHAB), in a note of condemnation copied to ZoomHaitiNews and CarribeanTelevisionNework.
Many voices were raised in Haiti to denounce this umpteenth killing perpetrated by armed gangs in which three members of the Desanclos family — a mother and her two daughters — all three close collaborators of the Je Klere Foundation, a human rights organization, of which Mr. Simson Desanclos, father of the two daughters and husband of Josette, is a founding member.
This massacre occurred while the Haitian National Police (PNH) was concentrating its efforts on Croix-des-Bouquets in order to dismantle the “400 Mawozo” gang, which, according to Pierre Espérance of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH), has 152 groups of bandits commonly known as the “base.
On Wednesday, August 24, 2022, four days after this killing that caused a stir among the population, agents from different specialized units of the PNH engaged in the fight against the “400 Mawozo”, conducted an operation in Cité Doudoune, which resulted in the death of two alleged bandits and the release of a hostage, a woman aged 39 who had been kidnapped since August 12 in Delmas 31.