Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille embarked on a trip to the United Arab Emirates and Kenya on Saturday to seek security assistance in the aftermath of one of deadliest gang attacks in the Caribbean nation in recent years.

Gang members brandishing automatic rifles stormed through a town in Haiti's main breadbasket region, killing at least 70 and forcing over 6,000 to flee, causing widespread shock even in a country grown accustomed to outbreaks of violence.

A gang leader said the bloodshed was meant to cut the capital off from a rice-growing region of Haiti amid starvation conditions.