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.

The U.N. human rights office says the tally of victims killed in a brutal attack on a small town in central Haiti by heavily armed gang members has risen to at least 70.