Members of the Wharf Jeremie gang killed at least 207 people earlier this month in Haiti’s portside neighborhood of Cite Soleil, the United Nations said in a report on Monday, raising the death toll from an initial estimate of 187.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a new report on the massacre that 300 members of the Wharf Jeremie gang carried out mass executions, kidnappings, and raids in less than a week, killing at least 134 men and 73 women, the majority of whom were elderly residents who were accused of witchcraft.
Gang leader Monel “Mikano” Felix ordered the attacks, claiming that locals were using Voudou to cause his child’s illness. The UN asserted that kidnappings from Voudou temples and religious ceremonies claimed a significant number of the victims.
The killings came as a shock to the Caribbean country, which has been engulfed in a gang conflict that is getting worse and causing severe food shortages, while its neighbors are not providing the security assistance that they have promised.
The United Nations estimates that Mikano’s gang has dominated a small but strategic area outside the capital for about 15 years, encompassing warehouses, national highways, and important ports.
Following the murders, gang members burned bodies, dumped them into the sea, and confiscated cell phones in an effort to destroy any evidence.
Over 700,000 people have been internally displaced in Haiti, and the UN reports that more than 5,300 people have died since January and more than 12,000 since the beginning of 2022.
