KINGSTON, (Reuters) – Gunmen in Jamaica killed eight people early yesterday in suspected gang killings on the Caribbean tourist island, police said.
Police later shot dead two of the suspected killers following the early morning murders in St. Catherine County, west of the capital Kingston.
A church was set ablaze in the violence on the island, which has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world.
In the first attack, the gunmen killed a mother and her daughters aged 24 and 11 and a son aged 16 after kicking down the door of their home. They then attacked another house where they killed a grandfather, his son, his grandson and a nephew.
Police said the two suspected gunmen killed by police were known members of the Clansman Gang, which operated near the old capital Spanish Town in an ongoing bitter gang turf war over drugs and arms. Five other gang members were being sought.
The killings were likely to reignite debate over whether parliament should have extended last month a state of emergency declared in May when security forces clashed with armed supporters of fugitive accused drugs kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s government did not receive enough supporting votes in parliament to extend the emergency measures.
Coke, described by U.S. prosecutors as the leader of the “Shower Posse” that murdered hundreds of people during the cocaine wars of the 1980s, was extradited to the United States in June. He has pleaded not guilty, and faces life imprisonment if convicted.
Before Coke was arrested in June after a five-week manhunt, 76 people were killed in four days of gun battles in May when Jamaican police and soldiers stormed the Tivoli Gardens slum in west Kingston in an attempt to capture him.
Some slum residents complained of abuse by the security forces, and Amnesty International called for a thorough investigation of the high number of civilian deaths.
