Haitian authorities arrest mayor, 7 others after tragedy inside Citadelle landmark

Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald on Apr 13, 2026

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Haitian police on Monday arrested the mayor of a small rural town where 25 people, including school-age children, died over the weekend in a deadly stampede inside the historic Citadelle fortress.

Wesner Joseph, who had been in office for only 15 days when the tragedy struck on Saturday, was taken into custody “for negligence, imprudence, irresponsibility,” Eno Zéphirin, the chief prosecutor for Cap-Haïtien, confirmed to the Miami Herald.

“As the mayor of the city, he is the one who is responsible to ensure the safety of all the crowds,” Zéphirin said. “He was supposed to know the capacity of the site and control the number of people.”

In an interview with the Herald late Saturday after the incident, Joseph said his office had not authorized the party inside the Citadelle that eventually dissolved into a deadly stampede when the crowd could not safely exit. Party goers, he said, had heard about the event on TikTok and began arriving before dawn.

Joseph was taken in Monday for questioning in Cap-Haïtien, the capital of Haiti’s north region, and then held. Hours earlier, Haitian police announced they had arrested five municipal security agents from the town and two employees of the country’s national heritage protection agency in connection with the tragedy. In addition to the deaths, 33 people were injured and hospitalized as a result of the stampede.

Haiti’s National Police, which arrested the employees on Sunday, and said an investigation continues into the post-Holy Week incident, which took place after the event was promoted on TikTok.

Authorities estimate that thousands of young people crowded into the cramped site where revelers were crushed trying to get in and out of the only door. Though police provided names of the individuals arrested, no other details were given other than they also seized six cellphones and six security badges. The people arrested are currently in custody at the central police station in the nearby town of Cap-Haïtien, the country’s second-largest city.

The incident has raised urgent questions about who should be held responsible, and prompted the government to declare three days of national mourning beginning Tuesday. Oversight of the facility is split between the town and the Haitian Institute for the Protection of National Heritage.

A United Nations World Heritage site, the fortress was commissioned by the country’s first and only king, Henry Christophe, and built between 1806 and 1820 by tens of thousands of formerly enslaved people,

Initially known as the Citadelle Henri, in honor of the monarch who ruled over a divided Haiti, it later came to be called Laferrière, after the hill on which it stands.

A preliminary report shared with the Herald on Monday by the Ministry of Culture found gaps in security, even though the heritage institute had warned as recently as March 20 about the risks posed by high attendance and limited capacity.

Police were present from Wednesday through Friday, the report said, but had left before the incident occurred.

According to the report, access to the site was restricted to a single gate — a measure intended to control revenue collection but which created a bottleneck.

“There was no structured crowd management,” the report said, noting that people were attempting to exit while others forced their way in. Rain further worsened conditions, intensifying the crush.

The report concluded that what unfolded was not “an isolated incident, but rather stemmed from a series of structural failures.”

Haitian police said the investigation into the incident remains ongoing.

The tragedy, which drew thousands into a confined space over the weekend, has prompted condolences from foreign embassies in Port-au-Prince as well as nations belonging to the Caribbean Community.

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