Montfort, Haiti’s largest schools for deaf and deaf-blind children based in Croix-des-Bouquets, in a photo taken in December 2022. The school is among many education facilities unable to open their doors because of gang violence. Photo courtesy of Institut Montfort)
Montfort, Haiti’s largest schools for deaf and deaf-blind children based in Croix-des-Bouquets, in a photo taken in December 2022. The school is among many education facilities unable to open their doors because of gang violence. Photo courtesy of Institut Montfort)

PORT-AU-PRINCE — At the Institut Montfort campus in Croix-des-Bouquets, the sprawling school that serves as Haiti’s largest institution for deaf and blind-deaf children, several nuns, staffers and deaf children are among 30 people stuck inside the compound.

For months now, turf wars between local gangs in the surrounding area have kept the group, who live on the campus, shut in.

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Murdith Joseph is a social worker and journalist. She studied at the State University of Haiti and Maurice Communication. She first worked as a journalist presenter and reporter for Radio Sans Fin (RSF) then as a journalist reporter for Radio tele pacific and writting for the daily Le National. Today she joined the Haitian Times team and covers the news in Port-Au-Prince-Haiti.