Artibonite (department) in the context of "Gonaïves"

Saint-Marc (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ maʁk]; Haitian Creole: Sen Mak) is a commune in western Haiti in Artibonite departement. Its geographic coordinates are 19°7′N 72°42′W / 19.117°N 72.700°W / 19.117; -72.700. At the 2015 Census the commune had 266,642 inhabitants. It is one of the biggest cities, second to Gonaïves, between Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien.

Before the settlement of the French, the region was known as Amani-y ad part of the Xaragua caciquat.

The National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation and Reconstruction of Haiti (French: Front pour la libération et la reconstruction nationales) was a rebel group in Haiti that controlled most of the country following the 2004 Haitian coup d'état. It was briefly known as the "Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front", after the country's central Artibonite region, before being renamed on February 19, 2004, to emphasize its national scope.

The group can be considered an alliance between two elements within the coup: armed anti-government gangs and former soldiers of the disbanded Haitian army. The most prominent of the gangs was the one based in Gonaïves, formerly known as the "Cannibal Army", who had once supported Lavalasian-party President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide but later turned against him. The coup initiated with the Cannibal Army's capture of Gonaïves on February 5, 2004. It was led until his death in 2005 by Buteur Metayer since the murder (allegedly on Aristide's orders) of Buteur's brother, Amiot Metayer, in late 2003.