PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) — A gang attack on a town in Haiti killed at least 16 people over the weekend, police said, as the UN chief warned Monday that the estimated death toll could be as high as 80 people.

“This attack underscores the gravity of the security situation faced by the Haitian population,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The attack from late Saturday into Sunday happened in Petite Riviere de l’Artibonite, a town in central Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.

Members of the Gran Grif gang burned houses and left multiple people dead, local rights activist Bertide Horace said, with more attacks also happening Monday.

The exact toll was not immediately clear.

Pierre Esperance, a representative of the National Human Rights Defense Network, citing residents’ testimonies, told AFP that the attackers gunned down those fleeing the house fires “while others were executed at point-blank range.”

Esperance said he believed 70 were dead.

Police put the toll at 16 dead with 10 wounded, while Horace said around 30 were killed with roughly 10 people missing and several hurt.

Dujarric told reporters in New York that estimates of the death toll vary, ranging from 10 to up to 80 people killed.

A clearer death toll was not available because it is difficult to send a government official to count the bodies, said Venson Francois, a prosecutor from nearby Saint-Marc.

Francois said he feared a higher death toll because the attack was carried out during a local festival.

For years, Haiti has been in the throes of deadly gang violence, with frequent murders, rapes and kidnappings.

The UN rights office said last week that gang violence and security operations targeting the gangs led to more than 5,500 deaths between March 2025 and mid-January.

Of those, at least 1,424 people were killed as a result of violence by gangs, while 790 were wounded, according to the UN report.

Operations against gangs led by security forces caused at least 3,497 deaths and 1,742 injuries.

Meanwhile, attacks against gangs by self-defence groups caused at least 598 people to be killed and 76 injured.