At least 110 people were killed over the weekend in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Haiti’s capital, a leading human rights group has said, attributing the killings to a personal vendetta by a local gang leader.
The National Human Rights Defence Network (RNDDH) said on Sunday that Wharf Jeremie gang leader Monel “Mikano” Felix ordered the massacre in Cite Soleil, a sprawling slum in Port-au-Prince, after his child became sick.
Felix had reportedly sought advice from a Voodoo priest who accused elderly people in the area of using witchcraft to harm the child, who died on Saturday afternoon.
Gang members killed at least 60 people on Friday and 50 on Saturday using machetes and knives, according to RNDDH.
All the victims were aged over 60, the rights group said.Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Monday, United Nations rights chief Volker Turk commented on this weekend’s violence, putting the death toll at 184.
“Just this past weekend, at least 184 people were killed in violence orchestrated by the leader of a powerful gang in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, in the Cite Soleil area,” Turk said.
Densely populated Cite Soleil is among the poorest and most violent areas of Haiti. Tight gang control, including the restriction of mobile phone use, has limited residents’ ability to share information about the latest killings.
The UN in October estimated that Felix’s gang numbered some 300 people and operated around nearby Fort Dimanche and La Saline.
La Saline was in November 2018 the site of the massacre of at least 71 civilians, while hundreds of homes were set on fire.
The government, racked by political infighting, has struggled to contain armed gangs’ growing power in and around the capital.
Haitian authorities had in 2022 requested international security support for local police, but the mission – based on voluntary contributions – that the UN approved in 2023 has only partially deployed and is severely under-resourced.
Haitian leaders have since called for the mission to be converted into a UN peacekeeping force to ensure it is better supplied, but the plan stalled amid opposition from China and Russia in the Security Council.
Some 5,000 people have been killed in Haiti so far this year, the UN’s Turk said. An estimated 41,000 people were forced to flee their homes in the last two weeks alone, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Overall, there are more than 700,000 people displaced in Haiti due to the conflict, the IOM says.