While there was enough chaos being caused as a result of Mother Nature on the coun­try of Haiti with last year’s earth­quake, there was even more suf­fer­ing going on for the inmates con­fined to prisons.

Being con­firmed by a spokesman for the U.N. peace­keep­ing mis­sion Sat­ur­day, there will be a full-out inves­ti­ga­tion on the shoot­ing of dozens of pris­on­ers dur­ing a jail riot that occurred around the time of the earthquake.

“As far as we’re con­cerned there was a major human rights vio­la­tion in that prison,” U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst told The Asso­ci­ated Press after the newspaper’s story was released.

Accord­ing to reports, The New York Times had ini­tially posted a story speak­ing on the riot and alle­ga­tions that police were behind mur­ders in the town of Les Cayes, along with the claim that Hait­ian offi­cials were doing their best to keep the even under wraps.

Report­edly tak­ing place on Jan. 19, a week after the quake that had already taken the lives of close to 300,000 peo­ple, 12 to 19 pris­on­ers were mur­dered and 40 were wounded by gunshots.

In regards to what sparked the riot, pris­on­ers tried to escape after becom­ing shaky by the after­shocks.   In response, Hait­ian police and U.N. peace­keep­ers sur­rounded the facil­ity to pre­vent the escape with the author­i­ties rush­ing the build­ing and open­ing fire, at some point.

An inter­nal inquiry was opened by the U.N. close to May 12, with Wimhurst rea­son­ing the delay to the earth­quake and the toll that was taken on the orga­ni­za­tion, includ­ing a col­lapsed headquarters.

There have been no state­ments released by police or prison offi­cials since the announcement.

http://hiphopwired.com/2010/05/24/the-u-n-investigating-prisoner-shootings-during-haiti-earthquake/