Pont-Sondé (, ) is a town in the

communal section The communal section (, formerly section rurale) is the smallest administrative division in Haiti. The 144 List of communes of Haiti, communes are further divided into 571 communal sections. Operation It is headed by an executive body, the CAS ...

of Bocozelle in the

Saint-Marc Saint-Marc (; ) is a List of communes of Haiti, commune in western Haiti in Artibonite (department), Artibonite departement. Its geographic coordinates are . At the 2015 Census the commune had 266,642 inhabitants. It is one of the biggest cities ...

commune, in the Artibonite department of

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

Location

Located within the

Saint-Marc Arrondissement Saint-Marc () is an arrondissement in Artibonite department of Haiti. It has 268,499 inhabitants.''Institut Haïtien de Statistique et d'Informatique'' (IHSI), 7 August 2003. Postal codes in the Saint-Marc Arrondissement start with the number 43. ...

, Pont-Sondé is located at an important crossroads on the road linking the capital

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( ; ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Haiti, most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2022 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The me ...

to the second largest city of

Cap-Haïtien Cap-Haïtien (; ; "Haitian Cape") is a List of communes of Haiti, commune of about 400,000 people on the north coast of Haiti and capital of the Departments of Haiti, department of Nord (Haitian department), Nord. Previously named ''Cap‑Fran� ...

on the northern coast.

History

When the Haitian national highway was constructed in 1880, a bridge spanning across the

Artibonite River The Artibonite River ( French: ''Fleuve Artibonite''; Spanish: '' Río Artibonito''; Haitian Creole: ''Latibonit'') is the longest river in Haiti, and the longest on the island of Hispaniola. It is also the second-longest river in the Caribbean, b ...

was built. The settlement of Pont-Sondé then developed around this bridge. Pont-Sonde had about ten thousand inhabitants before the

2010 Haiti earthquake The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake that struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (departm ...

. Since then, the village has hosted a large influx of refugees. In September 2024, during the

Gang war in Haiti Since 2020, Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince has been the site of an ongoing gang war. The government of Haiti and Haitian security forces have struggled to maintain their control of Port-au-Prince amid this conflict, with gangs reportedly control ...

, personnel from the Anti-Gang Tactical Unit and the Departmental Operations and Intervention Brigade were deployed to Pont-Sondé. Despite this, the town was attacked by the Grand Grif gang on 3 October 2024, leaving at least 115 people dead.

Economy

Pont-Sondé is the leading producer of rice in Haiti. There is an important market which is held along the road and on the bridge over the Artibonite.

References

Populated places in Artibonite (department) {{Haiti-geo-stub