PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The United Nations has raised the death toll from a recent massacre in Haiti in which dozens of elderly people and voodoo religious leaders were killed by gangs and urged officials to punish the perpetrators. .
More than 207 people were killed by the Whorf Jeremy gang between Dec. 6 and 11, the United Nations Office for Integration in Haiti said in a report released Monday. Gangs took people from their homes and places of worship, interrogated them and then executed them with bullets and machetes.
Earlier this month, a Haitian human rights group estimated: More than 100 people died But a new UN investigation has doubled the number of victims.
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“We cannot guarantee that nothing has happened,” said Maria Isabel Salvador, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Haiti.
“We urge the Haitian justice system to fully investigate this horrific crime and arrest and punish the perpetrators and their supporters,” she said in a statement.
Haitian human rights groups said: The massacre has begun After the son of Micanor Altès, leader of the Wharf Jeremie gang, died from illness.
The Cooperative for Peace and Development, a human rights group, said information circulated in the community indicated that Altes had accused neighbors of giving his son his illness.
“He decided to cruelly punish all the elderly and (Vodou) practitioners who, in his imagination, could have cast a bad spell on his son,” the group said in a statement released shortly after news of the massacre broke.
In a report Monday, the United Nations said the Altes gang tracked people down from their homes and places of worship, first interrogating them and then transporting them to execution sites.
The United Nations said gangs tried to erase evidence of the killings by burning the bodies or dismembering them and throwing them into the sea.
The massacre is the latest humanitarian tragedy in Haiti. Gang violence has worsened in Haiti since the president was killed. 2021 coup attempt.
Haiti has struggled to organize elections that would fill the power vacuum and restore democratic rule.
The Caribbean nation is currently ruled by a transitional council that includes representatives from the business community, civil society and political parties, but the government has no control over large parts of the capital and gangs are constantly fighting over ports, highways and neighborhoods.
Gang warfare in Haiti has killed more than 5,350 people this year, according to the United Nations.
The Haitian government acknowledged the massacre of the elderly in a statement released earlier this month and pledged to persecute those responsible for this “unspeakable act of genocide.”
