At least 25 people were killed when a tanker truck exploded on Haiti’s southern peninsula on Saturday. Dozens of survivors suffered severe burns, local media reported.
“What I just saw is a terrible scene,” said Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conillewho visited the site near the coastal town of Miragoane in the Nippes department, in a statement. He promised state support for the victims and their families.
Another 40 people were injured in the municipality of Miragoâne in the southwest of the country, as Prime Minister Conille via the platform X. 19 victims with severe burns were being taken by helicopter to specialized hospitals in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, reported the newspaper “Le Nouvelliste” citing the Director General for Civil Protection, Emmanuel Pierre.
People in Haiti suffer from hunger and violence
According to the report, the truck’s tank was punctured after it crashed into another truck that had broken down on the road. Local residents rushed to the truck to steal the gasoline, which ignited the fuel and caused the truck to explode.
It is not the first accident of this kind in the Caribbean state. At the end of 2021, at least 70 people were killed in a similar incident in the north of the country.
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In recent weeks, fuel deliveries to the Miragoane region have slowed, with trucks being transported by ferry to avoid gang-controlled highways around the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The spread of gangs in the capital and surrounding areas has triggered a humanitarian crisisresulting in mass displacement, sexual violence and recruitment of children.
Of the 674 million dollars that the United Nations says are needed for humanitarian aid in Haiti this year, only 35 percent have been covered so far. About half of the Caribbean state’s eleven million inhabitants are suffering from acute hunger. A state of emergency has already been declared nationwide. More than half a million Haitians have been displaced within their own country due to the violence. (Reuters, dpa)
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