GANGS have rampaged through two neighbourhoods of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, leaving at least a dozen people dead.

Gunmen looted homes in the upmarket communities of Laboule and Thomassin before dawn on Monday, forcing residents to flee as some called radio stations pleading for police to intervene. 

The districts had remained largely peaceful despite a surge in violent gang attacks across Port-au-Prince since February 29.

The bodies of at least 12 men were seen on the streets of Petionville, located just below the mountainous communities of Laboule and Thomassin.

Crowds began gathering around the victims, one of whom was lying face up on the street surrounded by a scattered pack of cards and another who was found face down inside a pick-up truck known as a “tap-tap” that operates as a taxi. 

A woman at one of the scenes collapsed and had to be held by others after learning that one of her relatives had been killed.

Local resident Douce Titi, who works at the mayor’s office, said: “We woke up this morning to find bodies in the street in our community of Petionville.

“Ours is not that kind of community. We will start working to remove those bodies before the children start walking by to go to school and the vendors start to arrive.”

The most recent attacks raised concerns that gang violence would continue despite Prime Minister Ariel Henry pledging nearly a week ago to resign once a transitional presidential council has been set up, as gangs had been demanding.

Also on Monday, Haiti’s electricity supply company announced that four substations in the capital and elsewhere had been “destroyed and rendered completely dysfunctional,” leaving large swathes of Port-au-Prince without power.

Meanwhile, the deployment of a United Nations-backed Kenyan police force to combat the gangs has been delayed, with the East African country saying that it would wait until the transitional council has been established.