A mob in the Hait­ian cap­i­tal beat and burned 13 sus­pect­ed gang mem­bers to death with gaso­line-soaked tires Mon­day af­ter pulling the men from po­lice cus­tody at a traf­fic stop, po­lice and wit­ness­es said.

The hor­rif­ic vi­o­lence un­der­lined the in­creas­ing­ly law­less sit­u­a­tion in Port-au-Prince where crim­i­nal gangs have tak­en con­trol over an es­ti­mat­ed 60% of the city since the Ju­ly 2021 as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse.

Haiti Na­tion­al Po­lice said in a brief state­ment that of­fi­cers in the city’s Canape Vert sec­tion stopped and searched a minibus for con­tra­band, and had con­fis­cat­ed weapons from sus­pects be­fore they were “un­for­tu­nate­ly lynched by mem­bers of the pop­u­la­tion.” The state­ment did not elab­o­rate on how mem­bers of the crowd were able to take con­trol of the sus­pects.

A wit­ness who gave his name as Ed­ner Samuel told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that mem­bers of the crowd took the sus­pect­ed gang­sters away from po­lice, beat them and stoned them be­fore putting tires on them, pour­ing gaso­line over them and burn­ing them.

An AP re­porter at the scene saw 13 bod­ies burn­ing in a street. The fires drew hun­dreds of on­look­ers in the hilly sub­urb of the city, many of them shield­ing their noses from the fumes.

Samuel said the sus­pects were be­lieved to have been head­ing to an­oth­er area to join a group of gang mem­bers who were bat­tling po­lice. An­oth­er wit­ness, Jean Jo­sue, said there had been a lot of shoot­ing in the area since the ear­ly morn­ing.

The sit­u­a­tion in the cap­i­tal re­mained tense, and shots could be heard ring­ing out from sev­er­al neigh­bor­hoods.

Wit­ness­es at the scene said the sus­pects were be­lieved to have been mem­bers of the Kraze Barye gang, which trans­lates to “Break­ing Bar­ri­ers.” Au­thor­i­ties say the group is led by Vi­tel’Homme In­no­cent, who is ac­cused of help­ing kid­nap 17 U.S. mis­sion­ar­ies in Oc­to­ber 2021 and al­so is linked to the as­sas­si­na­tion of Moïse.

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By EVENS SANON

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)