Haitian gangs massacre hundreds accused of ‘witchcraft’

Haiti’s gangs have crossed a “purple line”, after allegedly killing at the least 184 individuals they suspected of witchcraft.

Gang chief Micanor Altès is claimed to have ordered the knife-and-machete “bloodbath” within the capital Port-au-Prince final week as a result of he suspected individuals of practising witchcraft to make his baby sick. At the least 127 of the victims had been aged, in line with Haiti’s Nationwide Human Rights Protection Community (RNDDH), mentioned CNN.

Altès – often known as Monel Felix, Alfred Mones, “Mikanò” and “King Micanor” – took “recommendation from a voodoo priest”, who “accused aged individuals within the space” of utilizing witchcraft to hurt his baby, an RNDDH report mentioned.

The transitional authorities of the violence-ridden Caribbean nation has vowed to convey the perpetrators to justice. “A purple line has been crossed, and the State will mobilise all its forces to trace down and annihilate these criminals,” mentioned an announcement from the Haitian prime minister’s workplace.

‘100% voodoo’

Voodoo, or Vodou because it’s identified in Haiti, is among the nation’s official religions, together with Christianity. It’s extensively practised in all components of society. A “frequent native joke”, in line with the Los Angeles Occasions, is that Haiti is “70% Catholic, 30% Protestant, and 100% voodoo”.

Vodou is believed to have its roots in “tribal religions” that had been dropped at Haiti, then often called the French colony of Saint-Domingue, by West Africans taken as slaves, mentioned Al Jazeera.

Practitioners consider that every one residing issues – together with animals and crops – have spirits, and use rituals, prayers and dances to attach with them.

However Vodou has lengthy been “attacked by different religions”, and damaging stereotypes about Vodou, in “racially coded language”, have been used to “pathologise Haitian tradition”.

Simply this yr, Donald Trump accused Haitian immigrants in Ohio of consuming pet canines and cats, and “disinformation flooded the web”. Elon Musk, Trump’s most outstanding backer, shared a video, on his social-media platform X, displaying a lady of apparently Haitian origin describing animal sacrifice as frequent Vodou observe – a declare that has been extensively debunked.

Vodou has additionally been the main focus of Haitian gang violence earlier than. Altès is believed to have ordered the killing of 12 aged feminine Vodou practitioners in 2021.

‘Spiral into the abyss’

Haiti has been “convulsed by violence” since earlier this yr, when gangs banded collectively in a coalition often called Viv Ansanm (Dwelling Collectively) to “assault authorities establishments”, together with prisons and hospitals, mentioned The New York Occasions.

Within the spring, the gangs succeeded in “forcing out a major minister”, and so they now management about 85% of the capital and huge swathes of the countryside – regardless of the presence of a UN-backed police pressure. General, about 5,000 individuals have been killed by gang violence this yr, and greater than 700,000 displaced, in line with the UN. Greater than half of these displaced are youngsters.

Makes an attempt by gangs to achieve new territory have led to “significantly bloody incidents previously two months”, mentioned the BBC. Peculiar residents, relatively than rival gang members, are more and more being focused.

The brutality of those newest killings displays the nation’s “accelerating spiral into the abyss”, William O’Neill, the UN’s human-rights professional for Haiti, informed the New York Occasions.

The “slaughter” centred on a “sprawling slum” within the Cité Soleil space – in one of the crucial “impenetrable gang strongholds”, often called Wharf Jérémie. “Mutilated our bodies had been burned within the streets,” mentioned the RNDDH report, after which flung into the ocean.

It’s now “a ghostly place,” mentioned El País. “Its slim streets, as soon as lively, stay desolate”, and “the few residents who dare to exit achieve this with their eyes mounted on the bottom”. The our bodies of some bloodbath victims stay “lined by white sheets”, a sworn statement to “the size of the horror.”