On Tuesday night, John Dexit, a 12-year-old Haitian child and two other people: José Antonio Ceballos (25) and Johanna Espinal Rodríguez (38) were killed in the neighborhood of Cerro de Papatín, sector Bella Vista, south of Santiago in the Dominican Republic during a shootout between rival gangs that are waging a war for control of the distribution of narcotics in that area.

Colonel Juan Guzmán Badía, spokesman for the Central Cibao Directorate of the Dominican National Police based in Santiago, explained that the Haitian child who was hit by a lost bullet while in front of a fast food shop in which he worked and that the two slaughtered adults were drug traffickers in the area, well known to the police. The bodies were sent to the National Institute of Forensic Sciences of that city.

Witnesses indicated that the shooters were aboard a vehicle when they opened fire.

IH/ iciHaiti