Village de Dieu, Five Years of Shame: When the State Buries Its Dead with Indifference
, Friday, March 13, 2026 — Five years. Five empty coffins. Five families still waiting to mourn their lost loved ones with dignity. On March 12, 2026, Haiti commemorates one of the most sinister episodes in its recent security history: the execution of five police officers in Village de Dieu.
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince · · 9 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
Port-au-Prince, Friday, March 13, 2026 —
Five years. Five empty coffins. Five families still waiting to mourn their lost loved ones with dignity. On March 12, 2026, Haiti commemorates one of the most sinister episodes in its recent security history: the execution of five police officers in Village de Dieu. But beyond the legitimate emotion, the main unions of the National Police are leveling an unprecedented accusation: that of a state that has not only abandoned its officers but continues to tolerate the intolerable.
March 12, 2021 – March 12, 2026: The Chronicle of Assumed Impotence
Let's return to the facts. On that day, twelve elite SWAT police officers were sent on an operation to dismantle the “5 Secondes” gang led by the infamous Izo, in Village de Dieu, an area located thirty minutes from the National Palace that the former Director-General of the PNH, Léon Charles, had already described as “the place where the majority of kidnapped people in Port-au-Prince are taken.”
The operation turned into a nightmare. The police officers fell into a carefully prepared ambush: holes dug to immobilize armored vehicles, one of which was set on fire, two others seized by the criminals. Five officers – Georges Renois Vivender, Désilus Wislet, Eugène Stanley, Ariel Poulard, and Lucdor Pierre – were executed. Their mutilated bodies were displayed on social media as a war trophy. And most importantly: never recovered.
Mathieuny Sidel, national spokesperson for SYNAPOHA and a graduate of the 28th class of the Haitian National Police, expresses the persistent pain of the force:
“Five years later, there is a wound among police officers that has never healed. Where the bodies of their brothers burned, were humiliated, where the blood of their brothers flowed in Village de Dieu.”
The government at the time, through the voice of Secretary of State for Communication Frantz Exantus, expressed on March 13, 2021, its “deepest sadness” and reiterated “the firm will and determination of the authorities to do everything to counter the misdeeds of these enemies of democracy.” Five years later, Izo is still at large. Village de Dieu still belongs to him. And the bodies of the police officers have never been returned.
SPNH-17 and SYNAPOHA: “Five Years of Shame,” the Indictment
It is in this context that the National Police unions chose to break their institutional reserve to deliver an analysis as lucid as it is scathing. In a statement published on the occasion of this sad anniversary, SPNH-17 speaks frankly of “five years of shame.”
“March 12, 2021, remains a dark date in the history of the PNH, an event that marks the beginning of the major security degradation we are experiencing today,” writes SPNH-17. A statement heavy with meaning: for the union, this massacre is not a simple accident, but indeed the tipping point, the moment when the State lost control, never to regain it.
Mathieuny Sidel reinforces this analysis by evoking a “valve” that opened that day:
“Through SYNAPOHA, after all the analyses we have done, the fact that nothing was done to stop this hemorrhage, it is from that moment that a valve opened, a valve that until now has never been closed. When I speak of this valve, I speak of the blood of police officers flowing incessantly, and this has led to several other tragedies similar to that of Village de Dieu.”
He notably cites the massacres in Pétion-Ville in 2023, where several police officers lost their lives, as well as the assassinations perpetrated by the “Gran Grif” gang in Artibonite in January of the same year.
“The fact that it started somewhere and no drastic measures were taken to stem it means that it continues today, to the point where it almost becomes a practice: as soon as a bandit assassinates a police officer and the body is in their hands, the police officer is humiliated and abandoned, so much so that their family, friends, and colleagues can never recover their remains to pay their last respects.”
The union draws up an implacable indictment: “Five years later, the perpetrators and accomplices of this tragedy have never been sanctioned. The families of these police officers are still waiting for justice and reparations, while gangs become more powerful every day.” Behind these words, raw pain: “The PNH is under the tutelage of justice, but police officers never get justice.”
Abandonment as State Doctrine
But the unions go further in analyzing the causes. For SPNH-17, this situation is not the result of chance or incompetence: “SPNH-17 believes that this situation occurred because the State has never taken its responsibilities to combat gangs as it should. That is why the bodies of the police officers remained abandoned in Village de Dieu, and the area has never been dismantled despite the gravity of the act.”
Mathieuny Sidel provides a damning detail about the attitude of the high command at the time, led by former Director-General Léon Charles:
“Instead of recovering the bodies of the valiant police officers who fell in combat in Village de Dieu, they preferred to negotiate with the bandits to recover the armored vehicles that the latter had seized.”
A revelation that places the preservation of equipment above the respect due to officers who died in the line of duty.
This accusation is crucial. It points not to a punctual failure, but to a deliberate absence of political will. The facts tragically prove it right: since 2021, police massacres have followed one another with metronomic regularity. On January 26, 2023, six officers were executed in Liancourt by the Gran Grif gang. On February 29, 2024, six others in Bon Repos, victims of Vitelhomme's gangs. In all these cases, the same macabre scenario: the bodies disappear.
From Official Statements to Missing Actions
One must measure the contrast between the gravity of the facts and the institutional response. On March 12, 2023, for the second anniversary of the tragedy, PNH Director-General Frantz Elbé attended a mass at SWAT HQ in Clercine. The Police then believed that this date should be “a source of inspiration to meditate, strengthen esprit de corps, and work tirelessly.”
Meditate on what? Strengthen what? While the authorities pray, Izo consolidates his grip. While tributes follow one another, families are still waiting to be able to organize proper funerals. SYNAPOHA, moreover, maintains contact with some of them:
“We have not been able to find all the families,” confides Mathieuny Sidel, before adding this damning information: “No, the families of the police officers who were victims of the Village de Dieu tragedy have not received the compensation that the State had promised them. They have received nothing.”
The union recalls with contained violence: “SPNH-17 sends its sympathies to all the families of the victimized police officers, who for five years have lived with pain, while their children and loved ones remain without support, without justice, without reparations.”
The Voice of Other Actors: A Useless Chorus of Indignation?
SPNH-17 and SYNAPOHA are not alone in crying out in the wilderness. As early as 2021, the Fondasyon je klere (Fjkl) demanded the dismissal of those responsible for the failed operation and called for “respecting the right to burial for the killed police officers.” The National Network of Haitian Magistrates (Renamah) described the assassination as “atrocious” and demanded “necessary and legal provisions.” The Conference of Haitian Pastors (Copah) denounced the “laxity of state authorities.” The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (Binuh) demanded clarifications and called for “the perpetrators to be arrested, prosecuted, and brought to justice.”
Five years later, none of these demands have been met. Worse: gang leader Izo had cynically offered to bury the police officers himself, adding humiliation to barbarity. The image is unbearable: a criminal offering what the State refuses, a burial for its own fallen officers.
Drones, Equipment, Impotence: The Technological Paradox
A question plagues observers: how is it that no gang leader has been neutralized in five years, even though law enforcement now has explosive drones and more sophisticated equipment?
The unions' answer is unequivocal: the absence of political will. Positions are bombed, punctual operations are carried out, a security “show” is put on. But the masterminds of the gangs are never structurally attacked. Izo, Vitelhomme, Lanmò San Jou, Jeff gwo lwa, Krisla, Ti lapli: these names are known to everyone, including the authorities. Yet, they continue to parade with impunity in the streets of Village de Dieu, Liancourt, Bon Repos, and several departments.
Mathieuny Sidel poses a fundamental question:
“Can we say that the State is currently fighting gangs? We don't see that. So far, we have not yet seen the State fight gangs.” He also insists on the chronic under-equipment of the police, despite the recent acquisition of new armored vehicles. Above all, he points to the flawed planning of operations: “Operational planning is a total failure; it is poor planning. In terms of operations, intelligence becomes a central element. An operation planned without intelligence will lead to total failure.”
The union issues a desperate appeal to its peers: “The union takes this opportunity to call on all police officers to take their destiny into their own hands, because if there is no change, the list of police officers who die will continue to grow.” A statement that sounds like an acknowledgment of hierarchical failure and an admission of institutional impotence.
Time for Assessment: What Now?
What remains, five years later, of the Village de Dieu massacre? Names on a plaque, photos on social media, broken families. And a territory still in the hands of criminals. The Point Final movement, through the voice of Ulysse Jean Chenet, summarizes the impasse: “The only way to render justice to the assassinated police officers is to annihilate these armed groups, without compromise or half-measures.”
But how to annihilate when the State itself seems to have chosen, consciously or unconsciously, to coexist with gangs? When every major operation is announced, publicized, and often ineffective? When drones, instead of neutralizing identified targets, primarily serve to film interventions with no lasting impact?
Mathieuny Sidel formulates precise demands to break the impasse:
“Police officers' salaries must be increased, and they must be provided with real material resources.” Concrete measures that contrast with the chronic inaction of the authorities.
SPNH-17 concludes its statement on a note that is not a call to revolt, but a lucid observation: “The PNH is under the tutelage of justice, but police officers never get justice.”
Five years after the tragedy in Village de Dieu… this sentence resonates like an epitaph for five police officers who died twice: once under the bullets of criminals, a second time in the indifference of a State that could not even offer them a dignified burial.
As long as Izo and his ilk have not been neutralized, as long as families have not obtained justice and reparations, March 12 will remain what SPNH-17 so rightly called: a date of shame.
Five years. Five empty coffins. Five families still waiting to mourn their lost loved ones with dignity. On March 12, 2026, Haiti commemorates one of the most sinister episodes in its recent security history: the execution of five police officers in Village de Dieu. But beyond the legitimate emotion, the main unions of the National Police are leveling an unprecedented accusation: that of a state that has not only abandoned its officers but continues to tolerate the intolerable.
March 12, 2021 – March 12, 2026: The Chronicle of Assumed Impotence
Let's return to the facts. On that day, twelve elite SWAT police officers were sent on an operation to dismantle the “5 Secondes” gang led by the infamous Izo, in Village de Dieu, an area located thirty minutes from the National Palace that the former Director-General of the PNH, Léon Charles, had already described as “the place where the majority of kidnapped people in Port-au-Prince are taken.”
The operation turned into a nightmare. The police officers fell into a carefully prepared ambush: holes dug to immobilize armored vehicles, one of which was set on fire, two others seized by the criminals. Five officers – Georges Renois Vivender, Désilus Wislet, Eugène Stanley, Ariel Poulard, and Lucdor Pierre – were executed. Their mutilated bodies were displayed on social media as a war trophy. And most importantly: never recovered.
Mathieuny Sidel, national spokesperson for SYNAPOHA and a graduate of the 28th class of the Haitian National Police, expresses the persistent pain of the force:
“Five years later, there is a wound among police officers that has never healed. Where the bodies of their brothers burned, were humiliated, where the blood of their brothers flowed in Village de Dieu.”
The government at the time, through the voice of Secretary of State for Communication Frantz Exantus, expressed on March 13, 2021, its “deepest sadness” and reiterated “the firm will and determination of the authorities to do everything to counter the misdeeds of these enemies of democracy.” Five years later, Izo is still at large. Village de Dieu still belongs to him. And the bodies of the police officers have never been returned.
SPNH-17 and SYNAPOHA: “Five Years of Shame,” the Indictment
It is in this context that the National Police unions chose to break their institutional reserve to deliver an analysis as lucid as it is scathing. In a statement published on the occasion of this sad anniversary, SPNH-17 speaks frankly of “five years of shame.”
“March 12, 2021, remains a dark date in the history of the PNH, an event that marks the beginning of the major security degradation we are experiencing today,” writes SPNH-17. A statement heavy with meaning: for the union, this massacre is not a simple accident, but indeed the tipping point, the moment when the State lost control, never to regain it.
Mathieuny Sidel reinforces this analysis by evoking a “valve” that opened that day:
“Through SYNAPOHA, after all the analyses we have done, the fact that nothing was done to stop this hemorrhage, it is from that moment that a valve opened, a valve that until now has never been closed. When I speak of this valve, I speak of the blood of police officers flowing incessantly, and this has led to several other tragedies similar to that of Village de Dieu.”
He notably cites the massacres in Pétion-Ville in 2023, where several police officers lost their lives, as well as the assassinations perpetrated by the “Gran Grif” gang in Artibonite in January of the same year.
“The fact that it started somewhere and no drastic measures were taken to stem it means that it continues today, to the point where it almost becomes a practice: as soon as a bandit assassinates a police officer and the body is in their hands, the police officer is humiliated and abandoned, so much so that their family, friends, and colleagues can never recover their remains to pay their last respects.”
The union draws up an implacable indictment: “Five years later, the perpetrators and accomplices of this tragedy have never been sanctioned. The families of these police officers are still waiting for justice and reparations, while gangs become more powerful every day.” Behind these words, raw pain: “The PNH is under the tutelage of justice, but police officers never get justice.”
Abandonment as State Doctrine
But the unions go further in analyzing the causes. For SPNH-17, this situation is not the result of chance or incompetence: “SPNH-17 believes that this situation occurred because the State has never taken its responsibilities to combat gangs as it should. That is why the bodies of the police officers remained abandoned in Village de Dieu, and the area has never been dismantled despite the gravity of the act.”
Mathieuny Sidel provides a damning detail about the attitude of the high command at the time, led by former Director-General Léon Charles:
“Instead of recovering the bodies of the valiant police officers who fell in combat in Village de Dieu, they preferred to negotiate with the bandits to recover the armored vehicles that the latter had seized.”
A revelation that places the preservation of equipment above the respect due to officers who died in the line of duty.
This accusation is crucial. It points not to a punctual failure, but to a deliberate absence of political will. The facts tragically prove it right: since 2021, police massacres have followed one another with metronomic regularity. On January 26, 2023, six officers were executed in Liancourt by the Gran Grif gang. On February 29, 2024, six others in Bon Repos, victims of Vitelhomme's gangs. In all these cases, the same macabre scenario: the bodies disappear.
From Official Statements to Missing Actions
One must measure the contrast between the gravity of the facts and the institutional response. On March 12, 2023, for the second anniversary of the tragedy, PNH Director-General Frantz Elbé attended a mass at SWAT HQ in Clercine. The Police then believed that this date should be “a source of inspiration to meditate, strengthen esprit de corps, and work tirelessly.”
Meditate on what? Strengthen what? While the authorities pray, Izo consolidates his grip. While tributes follow one another, families are still waiting to be able to organize proper funerals. SYNAPOHA, moreover, maintains contact with some of them:
“We have not been able to find all the families,” confides Mathieuny Sidel, before adding this damning information: “No, the families of the police officers who were victims of the Village de Dieu tragedy have not received the compensation that the State had promised them. They have received nothing.”
The union recalls with contained violence: “SPNH-17 sends its sympathies to all the families of the victimized police officers, who for five years have lived with pain, while their children and loved ones remain without support, without justice, without reparations.”
The Voice of Other Actors: A Useless Chorus of Indignation?
SPNH-17 and SYNAPOHA are not alone in crying out in the wilderness. As early as 2021, the Fondasyon je klere (Fjkl) demanded the dismissal of those responsible for the failed operation and called for “respecting the right to burial for the killed police officers.” The National Network of Haitian Magistrates (Renamah) described the assassination as “atrocious” and demanded “necessary and legal provisions.” The Conference of Haitian Pastors (Copah) denounced the “laxity of state authorities.” The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (Binuh) demanded clarifications and called for “the perpetrators to be arrested, prosecuted, and brought to justice.”
Five years later, none of these demands have been met. Worse: gang leader Izo had cynically offered to bury the police officers himself, adding humiliation to barbarity. The image is unbearable: a criminal offering what the State refuses, a burial for its own fallen officers.
Drones, Equipment, Impotence: The Technological Paradox
A question plagues observers: how is it that no gang leader has been neutralized in five years, even though law enforcement now has explosive drones and more sophisticated equipment?
The unions' answer is unequivocal: the absence of political will. Positions are bombed, punctual operations are carried out, a security “show” is put on. But the masterminds of the gangs are never structurally attacked. Izo, Vitelhomme, Lanmò San Jou, Jeff gwo lwa, Krisla, Ti lapli: these names are known to everyone, including the authorities. Yet, they continue to parade with impunity in the streets of Village de Dieu, Liancourt, Bon Repos, and several departments.
Mathieuny Sidel poses a fundamental question:
“Can we say that the State is currently fighting gangs? We don't see that. So far, we have not yet seen the State fight gangs.” He also insists on the chronic under-equipment of the police, despite the recent acquisition of new armored vehicles. Above all, he points to the flawed planning of operations: “Operational planning is a total failure; it is poor planning. In terms of operations, intelligence becomes a central element. An operation planned without intelligence will lead to total failure.”
The union issues a desperate appeal to its peers: “The union takes this opportunity to call on all police officers to take their destiny into their own hands, because if there is no change, the list of police officers who die will continue to grow.” A statement that sounds like an acknowledgment of hierarchical failure and an admission of institutional impotence.
Time for Assessment: What Now?
What remains, five years later, of the Village de Dieu massacre? Names on a plaque, photos on social media, broken families. And a territory still in the hands of criminals. The Point Final movement, through the voice of Ulysse Jean Chenet, summarizes the impasse: “The only way to render justice to the assassinated police officers is to annihilate these armed groups, without compromise or half-measures.”
But how to annihilate when the State itself seems to have chosen, consciously or unconsciously, to coexist with gangs? When every major operation is announced, publicized, and often ineffective? When drones, instead of neutralizing identified targets, primarily serve to film interventions with no lasting impact?
Mathieuny Sidel formulates precise demands to break the impasse:
“Police officers' salaries must be increased, and they must be provided with real material resources.” Concrete measures that contrast with the chronic inaction of the authorities.
SPNH-17 concludes its statement on a note that is not a call to revolt, but a lucid observation: “The PNH is under the tutelage of justice, but police officers never get justice.”
Five years after the tragedy in Village de Dieu… this sentence resonates like an epitaph for five police officers who died twice: once under the bullets of criminals, a second time in the indifference of a State that could not even offer them a dignified burial.
As long as Izo and his ilk have not been neutralized, as long as families have not obtained justice and reparations, March 12 will remain what SPNH-17 so rightly called: a date of shame.
