Haiti's National Police agency says that it has recovered a hijacked cargo ship laden with rice following a gun battle with gangs that lasted more than five hours.
Two police officers were injured and an unknown number of gang members were killed in the shootout that occurred on Saturday off the coast of the capital Port-au-Prince authorities said in a statement.
It was a rare victory for an underfunded police department that has struggled to quell gang violence following a spate of attacks that began on February 29.
Police said in the statement on Sunday that those responsible for the hijacking were members of two gangs, named the 5 Seconds and the Taliban gang.
'Kidnapped everyone on board'
They said gunmen seized the transport ship Magalie on Thursday as it departed the port of Varreux.
Radio Télé Métronome reported that the gangs kidnapped everyone aboard the ship and stole some 10,000 sacks of rice out of the 60,000 sacks it was carrying.
The ship was headed to the northern coastal city of Cap-Haitien.
Also on Sunday, online news site Radio graphie reported that the Taliban gang used a front loader to demolish a police station in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Canaan where at least four police officers were killed in a recent attack. The station was no longer operational.
Targeting state infrastructure
The most recent gun battle between police and gangs comes more than a month after gunmen began targeting key government infrastructure.
They have burned down multiple police stations, opened fire on the main international airport that remains closed and stormed Haiti's two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.
The ongoing violence forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to announce he would resign once a transitional presidential council is formed.
Henry was in Kenya to push for the UN-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country when the attacks began and remains locked out of Haiti.
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