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The UN has now reported that 207 people were killed in a slum in the capital Port-au-Prince earlier this month.
The United Nations has raised the death toll of a recent mass killing in Haiti, saying its investigation found 207 people were killed by a gangincluding dozens of elders and Vodou religious leaders.
In a report released on Monday, the UN office in Haiti detailed the events that took place between December 6 and 11 in Wharf Jeremie neighborhood of Cite Soleil, a coastal slum in the capital Port-au-Prince.
The gang took people from their homes and places of worship, interrogated them and then “executed” them with bullets and machetes before burning their bodies and throwing them into the sea, the report said.
Earlier this month, human rights groups in Haiti appreciated this more than 100 people were killed in the case, but the new UN investigation concluded that a total of 134 men and 73 women were slaughtered.
“We cannot pretend that nothing happened,” said Maria Isabel Salvador, the UN Secretary-General's special representative to Haiti.
“I call on the Haitian justice system to thoroughly investigate these horrific crimes and arrest and punish the perpetrators and those who support them,” she said in a statement.
The Haitian government acknowledged the killing of the elderly in a statement released earlier this month and vowed to prosecute those responsible for this act of “unspeakable carnage.”
The UN Security Council issued a statement on Monday condemning the latest mass killings and expressing its “deep concern” over the crisis in Haiti, highlighting food insecurity and mass recruitment of children.
Insecurity and isolation
Insecurity has worsened so much in Haiti that The UN recently ordered some of its staff to leave the country or move from the capital to safer areas.
The country is increasingly isolated after the Port-au-Prince international airport was closed to commercial passengers planes hit by gunfire.
The United Nations is debating what steps to take in Haiti as an international security mission led by 400 Kenyan police officers struggles to restore law and order.
One option being considered is a return to a full-scale peacekeeping operation, despite the mixed results of previous deployments, including a MINUSTAH “stabilization” mission that has lasted since 2004. until her departure in 2017.
“King Mikanor”
Human rights groups in Haiti said Wharf Jeremie killings began after the son of Mikanor Altes, a local gang leader, died of an illness.
Witnesses told the groups that Altes, also known as “King Mikanor”, accused the people of the neighborhood of causing his son's illness by casting a spell on him.
In Monday's report, the UN said the people were tracked to their homes and to a place of worship by the Altes gang, where they were first interrogated and then taken to a place where they would be killed.
The killings are the latest humanitarian tragedy in Haiti, where gang violence has intensified since the nation's president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in coup attempt in 2021.
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 has no control over many areas of the capital, and gangs are constantly fighting over ports, highways and neighborhoods.
According to the UN, more than 5,358 people have been killed in Haiti's gang wars this year and another 2,155 injured. More than 17,000 people have been killed or injured in gang-related violence in Haiti since the start of 2022.
