Two Haitian police officers were killed and six others injured on Tuesday when a drone intended for targeting gang members exploded at a police base in Port-au-Prince, officials said.
It was the first government acknowledgment of collateral damage in Haiti’s use of aerial bombs against armed criminal groups.
Since March, the Haitian government has employed a drone task force run by an American private military contractor, Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, to target gang members. But the task force has been criticized for operating in secret and failing to coordinate operations with the Haitian National Police.
On Tuesday, an attack drone launched by the task force landed in an empty field without detonating. Local residents found it and took it to a police SWAT team base in the Kenscoff area of Port-au-Prince, the capital, according to a senior Haitian official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Members of the SWAT team were trying to disarm the device when it exploded, killing two officers, the official said.
Two of the six injured survivors were seriously wounded, Fritz Alphonse Jean, a member of Haiti’s presidential council, announced on X.
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