GENEVA: Close to 200 people were killed in brutal weekend violence in Haiti鈥檚 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 鈥減owerful gang leader鈥� convinced that his son鈥檚 illness was caused by followers of the religion, according to civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD).
鈥淗e 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,鈥� a statement from the Haiti-based group said.
鈥淭he gang鈥檚 soldiers were responsible for identifying victims in their homes to take them to the chief鈥檚 stronghold to be executed,鈥� it added.
UN rights commissioner Volker Turk said over the weekend that 鈥渁t least 184 people were killed in violence orchestrated by the leader of a powerful gang in the Haitian capital.鈥�
鈥淭hese latest killings bring the death toll just this year in Haiti to a staggering 5,000 people,鈥� he told reporters in Geneva.
Both the CPD and UN said that the massacre took place in the capital鈥檚 western coastal neighborhood 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 percent 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 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.
鈥淩eliable sources within the community report that more than a hundred people were massacred, their bodies mutilated and burned in the street,鈥� a statement said.
More than 700,000 people are internally displaced in Haiti, half of them children, according to October figures from the UN鈥檚 International Organization for Migration.
Voodoo was brought to Haiti by African slaves and is a mainstay of the country鈥檚 culture. It was banned during French colonial rule and only recognized 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.