The impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, hit by days of violent demonstrations that have claimed four lives, has suffered a mass prison breakout after 78 inmates escaped while police were dealing with protesters. The demonstrations, the culmination of months of anti-corruption protests over the fate of almost $4bn (£3.1bn) in missing funds earmarked for social development – delivered via a controversial deal for Venezuelan petrol – have swelled in recent days under the slogan: “Kot kòb Petrocaribe a?” (“Where’s the Petrocaribe money?”).
The protests have all but emptied streets normally clogged with traffic and pollution as schools, shops and municipal offices closed for fear of more violence. With at least four people dead, an air of uncertainty is hanging over the government of Jovenel Moise, with demonstrators demanding the president stand down. Describing the escape from the prison in Aquin, a police official said the prisoners had initially left their cells for a scheduled shower but refused to return before fleeing when police were distracted by a nearby demonstration.
The discontent has been driven by a long-running scandal over the fate of money from a deal that first emerged in a government report in 2017, in which it was suggested large sums had been embezzled by officials during the course of the Petrocaribe deal. Amid major protests in the centre of Port-au-Prince, a city that was devastated by the 2010 earthquake, protesters in the wealthy Pétion-Ville neighbourhood have blocked the road to Moise’s house and stoned his property.
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