A Bermudian aid worker told of a “nightmare” scenario engulfing the premises of the Feed My Lambs orphanage complex in Haiti, where much of the country has been overrun by armed gangs after years of fighting.

Philip Rego, who began humanitarian work in the Caribbean nation in 2008 and established the orphanage in the following year, told The Royal Gazette yesterday: “We’ve got big problems — I cannot find words, after 17 years in Haiti.

“We’ve had to take all the kids out of the orphanage and move them to another location. The gangs have moved into this area and taken a lot of people’s home, including three or four homes for our orphanage, school and clinic.

“It’s a nightmare. There is a gang from Port-au-Prince that wanted to join up with the gang in our area. Now they’re fighting each other.”

Mr Rego said: “I don’t know how to put this in words, how they have chased people out of their homes who have nothing. Their answer is trying to get something for nothing and to take control. They have one thing in their minds. They want control.”

He said it had devolved into a situation where “they’re coming right into your yard, through your back door”.

“It’s outright war,” he added. “It’s making things extremely difficult.”

Mr Rego said Feed My Lambs, located about 70km from the capital, continued to serve 63 children, but that everyone had been removed and the compound’s gates boarded up.

He added: “I had to move the girls out very quickly, because they will abuse girls.”

“The only thing inside now is six dogs; that’s it. We’ve had to find a location for 120 people, for the kids and families.”

Mr Rego said fighting had begun to break out in earnest between armed factions last Tuesday, with the orphanage evacuated by Friday and then closed off.

He said that so far, the compound appeared to be left intact.

“Maybe God is protecting all four corners of our property,” he said.

Mr Rego plans to make a logistical stop on the island this week, a decision that was guided partly by the imminent passage of Hurricane Melissa.

The system now moving across Jamaica to the west of Haiti as a major storm is making its presence felt in Haiti.

Conditions in the greater region are slipping into a similar pattern of flooding and landslide risk.

The National Hurricane Centre said the southwest of Haiti was vulnerable to “catastrophic” conditions, but that the country in general — the poorest in the Americas — was under threat of “extensive infrastructural damage and isolation of communities”.

Mr Rego said the gang terror remained his immediate threat, however.

“Until something happens to change people’s minds, there is a word I do not like to use, which is ‘hopeless’,” he said.

However, even under dire conditions, Mr Rego noted a container of supplies, including meals, had made it to shore with its contents delivered to the school intact without getting plundered.

“Gangs are all over the place,” he said. “But gang members are the ones who gave us our container. I let them have some bibles and some food.”