The director of the Haitian Police Academy, Rigaud Harington, was assassinated this Friday on the Freres highway, in the Petion-ville commune, by armed men, according to police sources.
After the crime, the attackers fled in the police car in which the commissioner was traveling.
Harington's assassination comes as Haiti faces an unprecedented deterioration in security, amid gang warfare, armed attacks, kidnappings, robberies and rape.
Between January and September 2022, 17 agents died in the line of duty (15 in the same period of 2021) and sixteen were suspended while being investigated, according to a UN report.
The ratio of police officers per 1,000 inhabitants in Haiti is 1.06, below the international norm of 2.2 per 1,000 inhabitants, with a total as of September this year of more than 14,100 registered officers, including 1,567 women.
