Haiti gang leader kills 110 elderly people over alleged witchcraft

PORT-au-PRINCE: At least 110 people were killed over the weekend in Haiti’s Cite Soleil slum when a gang leader targeted elderly people, the National Human Right Defense Network said on Monday.

The gang leader, known as Monel “Mikano” Felix, along with his Viv Ansanm group, were responsible of the massacre of people over the age of 60, he suspected of causing his child’s illness through witchcraft.

Human rights group said that after Felix’s child became sick, he sought advice from a voodoo priest who accused elderly people in the area of harming the child through witchcraft, triggering the gang leader to order the massacre.

Gang members killed at least 60 people on Dec 7 and 50 on Dec 8 using machetes and knives, all of them aged over 60, it said.

Cite Soleil, a densely populated slum by the port of the capital Port-au-Prince, is among the poorest and most violent areas of Haiti.

Tight gang control, including the restriction of mobile phone use, limited residents’ ability to share information about the massacre.

Gang leader Felix was in 2022 banned from entering neighboring Dominican Republic.