The United Nations increased the death toll from a recent massacre in which dozens of voodoo elders and religious leaders They were murdered by a gang in Haiti, and they asked the authorities to bring those responsible to justice.
The UN Integrated Office in Haiti indicated in a report published on Monday that between December 6 and 11 more than 207 people were murdered by the Wharf Jeremie gang. The gang took people from their homes and a place of worship, interrogated them, and then executed them by shooting and hacking them.
Earlier this month, human rights groups in Haiti had estimated that more than 100 people were killed in the massacre, but the new UN investigation doubles the number of victims.
“We cannot pretend that nothing happened,” said María Isabel Salvador, special representative of the UN secretary general in Haiti.
“I call on the Haitian justice system to fully investigate these horrific crimes and arrest and punish the perpetrators, as well as those who support them,” he said in a statement.
In Photos | Violent weekend in Haiti, with more than 180 older adults dead
An accusation of witchcraft would have unleashed a new wave of violence in Cité Soleil, a neighborhood in Haiti. Strict gang control, including restrictions on cell phone use, limits residents’ ability to share information about the bloody weekend.
Human rights groups in Haiti said the massacre began after the son of Micanor Altès, leader of the Wharf Jeremie gang, died from an illness.
The Cooperative for Peace and Development, a human rights group, said that according to information circulating in the community, Altès accused people in the neighborhood of causing her son’s illness.
“He decided to cruelly punish all elders and (voodoo) practitioners who, in his imagination, would be capable of casting a spell on his son,” the group said in a statement released shortly after news of the massacre emerged.
In Monday’s report, the United Nations said the people were found in their homes and at a place of worship by Altès’ gang, where they were first interrogated and then taken to an execution site.
The world body added that the gang attempted to erase evidence of the murders by burning bodies, or dismembering them and throwing them into the sea.
The massacre is the latest humanitarian tragedy in Haiti, where gang violence has intensified since the nation’s president was killed in a coup attempt in 2021.
Haiti has struggled to organize an election to fill the power vacuum and restore democratic government.
The Caribbean nation is currently governed by a transitional council that includes representatives from the business community, civil society and political parties, but its government does not have control over many areas of the capital, and gangs are constantly fighting over ports, roads and neighborhoods.
According to the United Nations, more than 5,350 people have been killed in gang wars in Haiti this year.
The Haitian government acknowledged the massacre against seniors in a statement issued earlier this month, and vowed to pursue those responsible for this “unspeakable carnage.”
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