Tens of thousands of Haitians are languishing in makeshift shelters after gang rampaged through their neighborhoods, killing and raping and setting fire to hundreds of wood-and-tin homes amid a surge of violence.Â
MEGAN JANETSKY and FERNANDA PESCE
Associated Press
Haiti’s toxic gangs are plundering the Caribbean nation, kidnapping, extorting and displacing civilians who have nothing left to give. And now, they are using rape in their war for control.Â
One of Haiti’s nearly 200 gangs ambushed a police unit, sending gunfire echoing through the streets in Port-Au-Prince. The firefight left three officers dead, one wounded and another missing.
Cocaine is spreading at an alarming rate through Europe, much of it through the world ports of Antwerp in Belgium and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. And Tuesday’s announcement of record seizures is also obscuring a bigger truth � that South American cartels are throwing ever more cocaine at the European market.
Haiti has been stripped of its last democratically elected institution. The end of its Senate solidifies what some call a de facto dictatorship that's only nominally in charge of a country wracked by gang violence.Â
Violence and inequality in Mexico prompt many people to seek a better life in the United States. But for others, Mexico offers peace and prosperity they can't find in their homeland.