PORT-AU-PRINCE — Haiti's National Police (PNH) have confirmed that a gang leader known as Mathias Saintil was “neutralised” as part of a law-enforcement operation in the capital, Al Jazeera reported. In a social media post shared on Friday, November 6, officials described Saintil as the leader of the Boston gang, named for a neighbourhood in Cité Soleil, an impoverished part of Port-au-Prince. Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé celebrated the news in a post of his own, writing in a mix of French and Haitian Creole: “One less gang leader. The battle to liberate the country from the grip of bandits continues with determination. The gangs won't be able to sleep!”

Source: Al Jazeera, Nov 7, 2026

The police said Saintil was struck by “several bullets” during an operation in the Nòlyo area and died while receiving treatment at a hospital in the capital, citing a reliable hospital source, according to the PNH statement carried in Haitian and regional reporting. Reuters, however, reported that Saintil suffered serious abdominal injuries during a drone strike in Boston on Thursday night, November 5, and died the following day while receiving medical treatment. The Haitian human-rights group RNDDH likewise told AlterPresse that a kamikaze drone struck the Nan Nélio area between 9pm and 10pm on Thursday — the two accounts of how he was hit have not been reconciled, and Awaaz Punjab reports both as attributed claims below.

Saintil's organisation was identified in a September 2025 United Nations Security Council Panel of Experts report as the Gang de Pierre VI, also known as Obama Boston, according to reporting on the case. Cité Soleil, the densely populated coastal district his gang operated in, is one of the areas worst affected by Haiti's gang violence, and Kenyan police officers previously conducted anti-gang patrols there during their international security mission, which ended with a final withdrawal in April 2026.

A capital largely held by gangs

Haiti has struggled with a surge in gang violence for years, most sharply since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 left the country in crisis, with no national elections held since. As much as 90% of Port-au-Prince has fallen under gang control, including key roadways and maritime ports, and at least 26 gangs operate in and around the capital, according to the United Nations figures cited by Al Jazeera. The UN estimates that half of the country's gang members are children and teenagers under 18, recruited with promises of food, income and protection.

The RNDDH told AlterPresse that seven kamikaze drones were dropped over several localities in Cité Soleil — Pierre-Six, Damien, Sarthe and Nan Nélio — as part of operations in the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac, and that the Nan Nélio strike killed eight members of Saintil's group and wounded about ten, three of whom later died, with three civilians also wounded in that zone. Those figures come from a single human-rights organisation's account and have not been independently verified. The PNH said operations against armed gangs continued on the ground and that several gang members had been killed or seriously injured since Thursday, particularly in the Boston neighbourhood.

The killing comes while an international Gang Suppression Force (GSF) is deployed alongside Haitian forces: its 12-month mandate was renewed by the UN Security Council in September until March 2027, but it has faced the same shortages of resources and staffing as the Kenyan-led mission before it. On October 18, four Salvadoran aviation technicians serving with the force were kidnapped, and El Salvador responded by surging as many as 2,000 troops to Haiti, with President Nayib Bukele describing the deployment as a rescue mission. On Friday, Bukele was again posting about Haitian gang leaders' residences: “Where is this house located? Give us the exact address, and we will destroy it.” The same day, the Associated Press reported, Haiti's powerful 400 Mawozo gang said it had contacted the state disarmament commission, citing a push for peace and national reconciliation, even as the operations continued.

Police urged Haitians to hand over illegal weapons, and the prime minister vowed the campaign would continue. Whether the death of one gang leader changes the map of a capital the UN says is up to 90% gang-controlled — with elections still on hold and the international force still short of resources — is the question Haiti's authorities have yet to answer. Awaaz Punjab will follow the operations and the disarmament contacts as they develop.