A gang leader who controls a key port in Haiti’s capital is accused of massacring older people and Vodou religious leaders in his community to avenge his son’s death, according to the government and human rights organizations that estimate more than 100 were killed.

Reports on the number of dead in Port-au-Prince can vary wildly in a country where such killings often occur in gang-controlled, largely inaccessible areas.

Haiti’s government in a statement Monday acknowledged the massacre, saying over 180 were killed in the Cite Soleil neighborhood, and promised to bring to justice those responsible for “this unspeakable carnage.”

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the ongoing violence, which saw the killing of “at least 184 people, including 127 elderly men and women, between Dec. 6-8 in the Wharf Jeremie neighbourhood of Cite Soleil,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. The UN did not respond to queries on how it obtained those figures.

Guterres called on Haitian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice for this killing and all other human rights abuses and violations, Dujarric said.

Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, told journalists earlier Monday that at least 184 people were killed by a powerful gang leader.

Gang leader’s son reportedly died of illness

The Co-operative for Peace and Development, a local rights group, said in a statement Sunday its monitoring unit found that around 20 older people were killed in the massacre in the community controlled by gang leader Micanor Altes, also known as Monel Felix.

The murky information was a worrying sign in a country in the grip of widespread gang violence.

“The fact that we have so many doubts about what happened days after the massacre is a signal that clearly indicates the level of control [gangs] have on the population,” said Diego Da Rin, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

The accused gang leader controls the coastal communities of Wharf Jeremie, La Saline and Fort Dimanche and was known for robbery, extortion and hijacking of goods and trucks, according to a UN report earlier this year.

“Micanor was not known for being as brutal as other gang leaders,” Da Rin said. “Not until now.”

The National Human Rights Defense Network said the massacre occurred because the gang leader’s child was severely ill, prompting him to seek advice from a Vodou priest. After his son died, he accused older people in the community “of practising witchcraft and harming the child.”

The Cooperative for Peace and Development said that according to information circulating in the community, Micanor accused people in the neighbourhood of causing his son’s illness.

“He decided to cruelly punish all elderly people and [Vodou] practitioners who, in his imagination, would be capable of casting a bad spell on his son,” the group said.

It said gunmen rounded up well-known community leaders and took them to the gang leader’s stronghold, where they were executed. 

Lack of information on social media

Da Rin noted that usually killings in Haiti are documented and posted on social media, though they can be difficult to verify. “In this case, there was not even a message on WhatsApp or a video on TikTok, which is very unusual,” he said.

The Co-operative for Peace and Development said Micanor has previously targeted Vodou practitioners, killing a dozen older women and Vodou leaders “wrongly accused of witchcraft” in recent years.

It’s not unusual for Haitians to seek medical and other advice from Vodou priests known as “oungans.” The religion that mixes Catholicism with animist beliefs was at the root of the revolution that led Haiti to become the world’s first free Black republic in 1804.

The massacre in Port-au-Prince comes two months after over 70 people were killed in the central town of Pont-Sonde, where gangs are vying to control more territory.

Such killings have overwhelmed Haiti’s National Police and a UN-backed mission led by Kenyan police that lacks funds and personnel.

“The crisis in Haiti has reached catastrophic levels with allied criminal groups intensifying large-scale, co-ordinated attacks on the population and key state infrastructure,” Human Rights Watch said Monday as it called for a UN mission.

It noted that “many Haitians live with the constant fear of being killed, raped, kidnapped, or forcibly recruited even as they struggle every day to find adequate food, water, and health care to survive.”

More than 4,500 people have been reported killed in Haiti this year, according to the UN.