The killings in a Port-au-Prince slum, which appeared to target practitioners of voodoo, were ordered by a gang leader, a Haitian human rights organization said.
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Massacre in Haiti’s Capital Leaves Nearly 200 Dead, U.N. Says
The killings in a Port-au-Prince slum, which appeared to target practitioners of voodoo, were ordered by a gang leader, a Haitian human rights organization said.
Published Dec. 8, 2024Updated Dec. 9, 2024, 8:57 a.m. ET
An armored vehicle on a dusty street, where several people can be seen riding motorbikes.
An armored police vehicle in Cité Soleil, a slum in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in May. Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters
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More than 180 people were killed in a massacre over the weekend in one of the poorest neighborhood’s of Haiti’s capital, the United Nation’s human rights chief said on Monday.
A leading Haitian human rights group described the killings as the personal vendetta of a gang boss who had been told that witchcraft caused his son’s fatal illness.
The slaughter began on Friday in the Wharf Jeremie section of Cité Soleil, a sprawling slum in Port-au-Prince, according to the National Human Rights Defense Network, a civil rights group based in the capital.
Older people who practiced voodoo appeared to have been targeted, according to the group. That assessment was backed by another rights organization and a Cité Soleil resident.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, told reporters in Geneva that at least 184 people had been killed.
Nearly 130 of those who were killed were over 60 years old, according to the U.N., adding that gang members burned bodies and flung them into the sea.
The brutality of the killings reflect a country enduring an “accelerating spiral into the abyss,” said William O’Neill, the U.N.’s human rights expert for Haiti.
Haiti has been convulsed by violence since early this year, when rival gangs banded together in an attack on government institutions, including police stations, prisons and hospitals.
The National Human Rights Defense Network said that one of the gang leaders, Monel Felix, ordered the killings in Wharf Jeremie after being told by a priest that voodoo was responsible for his son’s illness. The child died on Saturday afternoon, according to the widely respected rights group.
The group said that Mr. Felix, who is also known as Micanor Altes and by the nickname King Micanor, and his gang affiliates used machetes and knives to commit the massacre, according to the rights organization. The group did not say how it had obtained its information.
A resident of Cité Soleil, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, said the killings began on Friday night and targeted people who practice voodoo. In some homes, five or six people were killed, the resident said.
The Committee for Peace and Development, another Haitian civil organization, said the dead included some younger people, including several motorcycle-taxi drivers who were gunned down while trying to save others.
“Mutilated bodies were burned in the streets,’’ according to a statement by the National Human Rights Defense Network.
Mr. Felix could not be reached for comment, and there was no evidence that he had made any kind of public statement about the killings.
Wharf Jeremie is one of the most impenetrable gang strongholds in the capital, and the police generally do not go there. The lack of a law enforcement presence delayed the reporting of the massacre, experts who were following the developments said.
Voodoo, which originated in West Africa, is one of Haiti’s official religions. Its practitioners believe that all living things have spirits, including animals and plants. Brought to Haiti by slaves, voodoo, which is largely misunderstood in Western popular culture, coexists with Christianity as one of several recognized faiths.
The National Human Rights Defense Network said it was not the first time that Mr. Felix had been accused of killing older people who practice voodoo. He is believed to have been responsible for the killings in 2021 of 12 elderly female practitioners, the rights group said.
About 5,000 people in Haiti have been killed this year and more than 700,000 displaced as a result of gang-related violence, according to the United Nations. In the spring, the gangs succeeded in forcing out a prime minister.
A separate gang massacre two months ago in a farming town about 60 miles north of Port-au-Prince left roughly 80 civilians dead.
The bloodshed has continued despite the presence of a U.N.-backed police force, known as the Multinational Security Support Mission, which is composed largely of officers from Kenya.
Last month was a particularly deadly one in Haiti. Three U.S. airliners were struck by gunfire while taking off or landing from Haiti’s main airport in Port-au-Prince. The airport is still closed, and American Airlines decided it would not return to the country at least through next year, The Miami Herald reported.
With violence in Haiti surging, the United States has asked the United Nations to take over the security mission and turn it into an official peacekeeping operation. The change would allow for a steady supply of funding, personnel and equipment. Russia and China, which have veto power at the U.N. Security Council, have objected to the proposal.
The security mission recently announced that it had expanded its operations, opening a new base that will enable international police officers to work in more locations. The mission said it was committed to safeguarding critical infrastructure, reopening key national roads and creating a secure environment for national elections.
“We wish to call on gang leaders to surrender their weapons and turn themselves in, as their time is running out,” the mission said in a statement last week.
A spokesman for the mission said he was not aware of the killings in Wharf Jeremie. A spokesman for the Haitian National Police did not respond to requests for comment.
David C. Adams and André Paultre contributed reporting.
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