A Haitian gang leader is accused of ordering the slaughter of more than 100 people, including elderly religious leaders, to avenge the death of his son.
The killings are said to have taken place between Friday and Saturday in Port-Au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
According to the National Human Rights Defense Network, Micanor Altès, also known as Monel Felix and Wa Mikanò, sought advice from a Vodou priest after his son became ill.
The rights group said that after the boy’s death, Altès began accusing elders in the community of “practicing witchcraft and harming the child.”
The Cooperative for Peace and Development discovered that armed men had rounded up community leaders in the Cité Soleil neighborhood and taken them to the Altès stronghold, where they were killed, along with motorcyclists who tried to intervene.
“He decided to cruelly punish all elders and (Vodou) practitioners who, in his imagination, would be able to cast an evil spell on his son,” the group said.
The Cooperative for Peace and Development found that there is a ban on people leaving the community ‘continuing to identify (Vodou) practitioners and elders for the purpose of carrying out the silent murder.’
The Haitian government acknowledged the massacre in a statement Monday, saying more than 100 people were killed.
While reports of the number of deaths in Port-au-Prince often vary in a country where such killings often occur in gang-controlled, largely inaccessible areas, the government vowed to seek justice for the “unspeakable massacre.”
Micanor Altès, also known as Monel Felix and Wa Mikanò, allegedly ordered the massacre of more than 100 people and Vodou religious leaders to avenge the death of his son in Haiti
UN Secretary General António Guterres also condemned the ongoing violence.
It reported that at least 184 people, including 127 elderly men and women, were killed between Friday and Sunday. The UN did not respond to questions about how it arrived at these figures.
Guterres called on Haitian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice for the killings and all other human rights violations, Dujarric said.
Haitian watchdogs also estimate more than 100 deaths, sometimes citing community residents.
The Cooperative for Peace and Development said its monitoring unit recorded the killings of more than 20 people, but residents surveyed put it at more than 100.
The murky information was a worrying sign in a country gripped by widespread gang violence.
“The fact that we have so many doubts about what happened days after the massacre is a clear signal of how much control (gangs) have over the population,” said Diego Da Rin, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Altès controls the coastal communities of Wharf Jérémie, La Saline and Fort Dimanche and was known for theft, extortion and hijacking of goods and trucks, according to a UN report earlier this year.
“Micanor was not known to be brutal like other gang leaders,” Da Rin said. “Until now.”
Da Rin noted that killings in Haiti are typically documented and posted on social media, although they can be difficult to verify. “In this case, there wasn’t even a message on WhatsApp or a video on TikTok, which is very unusual,” he said.
According to the Cooperative for Peace and Development, Altès has previously targeted Vodou practitioners, killing a dozen elderly women and Vodou leaders in recent years who were “wrongly accused of witchcraft.”
It is not uncommon for Haitians to seek medical and other advice from Vodou priests known as “oungans.”
The religion that mixes Catholicism with animist beliefs was the basis of the revolution that led to Haiti becoming the world’s first free black republic in 1804.
The massacre in Port-au-Prince comes two months after more than seventy people were killed were killed in the central city of Pont-Sondéwhere gangs compete to control more territory.
A Kenyan police officer, part of a UN-backed multinational force, patrols a zone in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on December 5
A man carries his belongings as he flees home after last weekend’s violence by armed gangs, many of whom have grouped behind an alliance known as Viv Ansanm in Poste Marchand, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
The Haitian government acknowledged the massacre in a statement on Monday, saying more than 100 people were killed by members of a gang led by Micanor Altès (photo)
Such killings have overwhelmed Haiti’s National Police and a U.N.-backed mission led by the cash- and staff-less Kenyan police, while the U.S. and other countries pushing for a UN peacekeeping mission.
“The crisis in Haiti has reached catastrophic levels, with allied criminal groups intensifying large-scale, coordinated attacks on the population and key state infrastructure,” Human Rights Watch said on Monday as it called for a UN mission.
It noted that “many Haitians live in constant fear of being killed, raped, kidnapped or forcibly recruited, even as they struggle every day to find enough food, water and health care to survive.”
More than 4,500 people have died in Haiti this year, according to the UN