THE families of at least eight children killed by an explosive drone strike in Haiti’s capital have blamed the government for the deaths. 

The drones hit the slum district of Cite Soleil on Monday, targeting a suspected gang leader but killed at least 13 people, including seven adults, and left six other children seriously injured.

The area is controlled by Viv Ansanm, a powerful gang coalition that the United States designated a “foreign terrorist” organisation in May.

Haiti’s National Human Rights Defence Network accused police of launching two kamikaze drones as gang leader Albert Steevenson, known as Djouma, was preparing to celebrate his birthday and handing out gifts to children. 

Nanouse Mertelia, 37, said her son was fatally wounded after leaving home to buy food.

She found him on the ground, his leg and arm blown off.

“‘Come get me, come get me, please mama’,” she said he told her, but he had lost too much blood. 

“By the time we got to the hospital, he died.”

Romain Le Cour, of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, said the attack raised “urgent questions of accountability.”

“It has now been 48 hours since the incident, and the authorities have yet to issue any official communication or assume public responsibility,” he said.

In addition to the children, three civilians and four suspected gang members were killed, and seven other gunmen were wounded. 

Among the dead was 33-year-old moto taxi driver St-Jean Limonthard.

His mother said she prayed for him daily as he worked in a city now 90 per cent controlled by gangs.

“The child won’t be able to go to school,” Aglamoide Saint-Ville, 53, said as she held her son’s six-year-old daughter in her lap.

“I don’t know how we’re going to eat since we had no savings.”

Activists said a similar drone operation killed at least 11 civilians earlier this month. 

Rights groups warned that while drone strikes have claimed some gang members, the top leaders continue to move “openly in convoys.”

The attacks were carried out by a new task force of police units and private contractors formed earlier this year, which operates outside the oversight of Haiti’s National Police, and employed the use of explosive drones. 

Neither the police nor the prime minister’s office have commented.