The earthquake of 14 August 2021 and the escapes that followed: the RNDDH calls on the prison authorities

The earthquake devastated the Nippes, the Sud and the Grand'Anse, and the network has monitored the response through its regional structures since, watching the emergency response and the aid distributions alongside what the state did about the police, the courts and the prisons in the affected areas. This document is about the prisons: the civil prisons of Anse-à-Veau, Les Cayes and Jérémie, the damage they took, and the escapes and attempted escapes that followed. Detainees set fire to cells, and the network's reading of that is specific: every detainee knows there are cutting implements in the kitchens, and the ease with which fires are started suggests that lighters, matches, alcohol and gas are often and perhaps always within reach.

Thirty-three detainees who escaped after 14 August were still at large when the report was published, and those in custody have been moved into police cells and into the unfinished prison at Petit-Goâve. The network asks the prison authorities to make the damaged prisons functional again, to strengthen security across the prison estate, to move detainees out of police stations without putting them into the cramped Petit-Goâve cells, to finish building the Petit-Goâve prison, and to pursue the thirty-three.