PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Inmates broke out of a prison in the coastal town of Saint-Marc in central Haiti on Friday, police said, as authorities in the country struggle to quell ongoing gang violence.
Le Nouvelliste newspaper said officials at the prison went on strike to demand better treatment, and it quoted government commissioner Vension François as saying he feared a “mutiny,” suggesting guards may have been complicit in the prison break. But the report did not elaborate.
Local officials could not be immediately reached, and a spokesman for Haiti’s National Police did not return a message for comment. In a brief statement, police asked for help from the public in identifying escaped inmates, but did not say how many escaped.
Gunfire was heard near the prison, and videos posted on social media show smoke and fire billowing from it. It wasn’t immediately clear how many inmates the prison held at the time.
It is the third prison break this year in Haiti. In March, gangs freed thousands of inmates after storming the country’s two biggest prison s in the capital of Port-au-Prince as part of coordinated attacks that led to the eventual resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Saint-Marc, located north of the capital, has struggled with escaped inmates in the past. In December 2014, nearly three dozen inmates escaped after sawing through steel bars, authorities said. At the time, the prison held nearly 500 inmates.
Haitian prisons are severely overcrowded, and pre-trial detentions can stretch out for years given the country’s broken judicial system. Last year, only 1,892 of a total of 11,816 inmates in the country had been convicted of a crime, according to the U.N.
There’s also a chronic lack of water and food in prisons across Haiti, with 185 inmates dying last year, many from malnutrition-related diseases.