Close to 200 people were killed in brutal weekend violence in Haiti\u2019s capital, the United Nations said on Monday, with reports that a gang boss orchestrated the slaughter of voodoo practitioners. The killings were overseen by a \u201cpowerful gang leader\u201d convinced that his son\u2019s illness was caused by followers of the religion, according to civil organisation the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD). \u201cHe decided to cruelly punish all elderly people and voodoo practitioners who, in his imagination, would be capable of sending a bad spell on his son,\u201d a statement from the Haiti-based group said. \u201cThe gang\u2019s soldiers were responsible for identifying victims in their homes to take them to the chief\u2019s stronghold to be executed,\u201d it added. UN rights commissioner Volker Turk said over the weekend that \u201cat least 184 people were killed in violence orchestrated by the leader of a powerful gang in the Haitian capital\u201d. \u201cThese latest killings bring the death toll just this year in Haiti to a staggering 5,000 people,\u201d he told reporters in Geneva. Both the CPD and UN said that the massacre took place in the capital\u2019s western coastal neighbourhood of Cite Soleil. Haiti has suffered from decades of instability but the situation escalated in February when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in the capital Port-au-Prince to overthrow then-prime minister Ariel Henry. Gangs now control 80 per cent of the city and despite a Kenyan-led police support mission, backed by the US and UN, violence has continued to soar. The CPD said that most of the victims of violence waged on Friday and Saturday were over 60, but that some young people who tried to rescue others were also among the casualties. \u201cReliable sources within the community report that more than a hundred people were massacred, their bodies mutilated and burned in the street,\u201d a statement said. More than 700,000 people are internally displaced in Haiti, half of them children, according to October figures from the UN\u2019s International Organisation for Migration. Voodoo was brought to Haiti by African slaves and is a mainstay of the country\u2019s culture. It was banned during French colonial rule and only recognised as an official religion by the government in 2003. While it incorporates elements of other religious beliefs, including Catholicism, voodoo has been historically attacked by other religions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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