Gangs have long controlled Haiti’s poorest neighborhoods, but their influence and violence grew after Mr. Moïse’s killing.
They have battled for control of parts of Port-au-Prince through random killings, rape and kidnappings. A nine-day period last July saw 470 murders, according to the United Nations. The violence has kept residents from being able to work or to buy food, prompting many people to leave for the United States.
“People lived like rats who only came out of their holes to eat,” said Arnold Antonin, 80, a Haitian filmmaker living in the Dominican Republic who fled last year when his wife, Beatriz Larghi, was kidnapped and gangs took over his neighborhood, south of the capital. “The gangs were like the cats.” (His wife was released unharmed after three days, after a ransom was paid. )
On April 24, residents decided enough was enough. The 14 presumed gang members had been arrested and taken to a Port-au-Prince police station. Police officers watched helplessly as neighbors beat the suspects and used tires doused in gasoline to set them on fire, according to the report by the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, known as CARDH, which used a combination of field investigators, local authorities, witness accounts, media and verified social media reports to compile its data.