section_path: History (since 2023)/2024/Vigilante action
section_name: Vigilante action
paragraph_text: Vigilante action
  
  The "bwa kale" movement, which had begun in 2023 when a group of armed men "lynched and set fire to around a dozen men believed to be gang members", continued apace in late March 2024. In one case, on 29 March 2024, two men suspected of buying arms for gangs were taken from police custody and hacked to pieces by a mob in a small town near Mirebalais.
  
  Pierre Espérance, director of the National Human Rights Defense Network in Haiti, expressed concern about the risk of the transitional council giving power to people linked to gangs, drawing attention to vigilante action as a "clear expression of Haitians' revulsion for gangs", and to "rank-and-file police officers are revolting against the chief, who they say is tied to gangs."