Haitians are reeling a week after an armed gang attacked a village near the capital, killing at least 47 people and kidnapping some 50 more, said a local priest.
In addition to a pervasive sense of grief and fear, there is also a sense of helplessness, Father Yves Carlos Romulus told The Pillar.
“Haitians are not able to deal with this situation on our own. We need the will and help of the international community to get out of such a crisis,” Romulus said.
On August 23, around 150 heavily armed gang members stormed the farming village of Kenscoff, on the outskirts of Port au Prince. The assailants burned buildings and opened fire on people they encountered as they swept through the area.
At least 47 people were killed in the attack. In addition, the gang kidnapped at least 50 people.
While some women and children were later released, dozens are still being held hostage a week later.
Viv Ansanm, a prominent gang coalition with a powerful presence in Port-au-Prince, claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened to execute hostages if the government’s security forces killed any gang members.
Romulus said people in Haiti are in shock over the attack.
The priest, who lived in the village of Kenscoff for 10 years, said he personally knew some of the victims.
According to local reports, dozens of people attempted to find safety during the attack in a Protestant church in the village. But the assailants swarmed the church and forced people outside, killing many of them.
Romulus said the Protestant church was near the local Catholic Church.
“The people sheltered there were internally displaced. It was an accessible location for them, so they were living there,” he said.
He stressed that many of them had come to Kenscoff to escape extreme violence in the capital as a result of the heavy gang presence there.
Almost 1.5 million people have been internally displaced in Haiti due to rising gang violence, according to UN statistics. More than 1,400 people were killed by gang violence and during the second quarter of 2026 alone
Although the Caribbean nation has faced unprecedented violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, last week’s attack was marked by a rare degree of brutality.
Pope Leo XIV condemned the mass killing and kidnapping on Aug. 30. During his Angelus message, the pontiff lamented the “horrific massacre” and called “for the immediate release of all hostages.”
He made a “sincere appeal to all those in authority to make a concrete commitment to ensuring the safety of the population and putting an end to all forms of violence.”
Romulus himself lived in Kenscoff for a decade, before fleeing during an attack on his church early last year.
“Criminals murdered the parish’s security guard, looted the rectory and the church, and took everything,” he recounted.
Romulus said he and other people at the parish managed to escape during the January 2025 attack.
“We fled under a hail of gunfire,” he said. “We were very frightened because there was so much shooting. Gunfire was coming from everywhere…I was certainly traumatized.”
The priest said the attackers did not have any personal animosity against him or against the Catholic Church.
“They did all that in order to achieve their goal – to take over the municipality of Kenscoff. Not only the church, but the whole area. The place where I was is strategic for them,” he explained.
Today, Romulus lives north of the capital, in Plaine-du-Cul-de-Sac, with his parents. He helps out with the local parish and religious communities there.
Like many of those who have been displaced by violence, Romulus is still mourning the community he was forced to leave.
“I miss Kenscoff very much. It was my workplace,” he said. “But my mission is to lead people toward God [whether in Kenscoff or elsewhere].”
And, he said, Haitians are now grieving the newest massacre.
“There is a lot of sadness, grief, and anguish. Many of us were already living in an atmosphere of fear, pain, and indignation. Now it is even worse.”
“I knew some of the victims,” Romulus reflected. “Among them was a mother who lost four children. Her children attended the school where I used to work. It was a family of seven: a father, a mother, and five children. Four of the children were killed. It affected me deeply. I had known them for about five years.”
Amid the pain and grief of the ongoing violence, Romulus said, the local Catholic Church is unable to help the situation without international support.
“We cannot do much except denounce what is happening, condemn it, and pray.”
If you have not yet contacted your US Senators to ask them to please pass the continuing resolution already passed by the House last spring allowing the Haitians in the United States legally under Temporary Protected Status to stay in the US until at least some time in 2027, please do so. It is wrong to send people to their deaths because of xenophobia.