{More than 170 inmates escape from facility in town north of Port-au-Prince after killing guard and stealing weapons.}<\/p>\n
More than 170 inmates of a northern Haitian prison have escaped after killing a guard and stealing firearms, according to authorities engaged in a manhunt with support from UN peacekeepers.<\/p>\n
Judge Henry Claude Louis-Jean said the jail break occurred on Saturday in Arcahaie, a coastal town about 50km north of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince.<\/p>\n
Police in the Caribbean nation have set up checkpoints on roads leading from the jail and detained several people without identity cards.<\/p>\n
However, the 266 inmates of Arcahaie prison do not wear uniforms, making it easier for the escapees to hide from authorities.<\/p>\n
Eleven inmates were caught during the jail break, which happened when some prisoners were released in to a relatively less secure area for bathing.<\/p>\n
The inmates broke into an area used by the guards, stealing at least five rifles among other weapons.<\/p>\n
{{One guard was shot to death.}}<\/p>\n
Camille Edouard Junior, Haiti’s justice minister, said one inmate also died during the jail break after falling off a wall and hitting his head.<\/p>\n
“One guard was killed during the incident,” Edouard Junior told Reuters news agency. “Three prisoners were wounded, including one who died as a consequence of his wounds.”<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the escape, videos circulating online showed the guard’s bloodied body lying on the floor surrounded by escapees’ discarded sandals.<\/p>\n
The government condemned what it called a “mutiny provoked by heavily armed individuals”, according to a statement quoted by the news website Vant Bef.<\/p>\n
Police asked residents of the coastal area to follow authorities’ instructions as a manhunt intensified.<\/p>\n
It was not clear if any of the inmates had been recaptured by Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
Haiti experienced another major jail break only two years ago when a gang attacked the Croix-des-Bouquets prison and freed hundreds of inmates.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the country was devastated by Hurricane Matthew.<\/p>\n
More than 1,000 people were killed when Matthew crashed ashore on October 4 as a Category 4 storm, carrying winds of 230km per hour.<\/p>\n
According to the UN, 1.4 million people are in urgent need of help in Haiti.<\/p>\n
Haiti’s Civil Protection Department says more than 500 people are also infected with cholera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{More than 170 inmates escape from facility in town north of Port-au-Prince after killing guard and stealing weapons.} More than 170 inmates of a northern Haitian prison have escaped after killing a guard and stealing firearms, according to authorities engaged in a manhunt with support from UN peacekeepers. Judge Henry Claude Louis-Jean said the jail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29652"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29652"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}