Haitian authorities vow retribution after Wharf Jérémie gang kills over 184 in Cité-Soleil bloodbath

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The Haitian government has vowed to take decisive action against the gangs responsible for the massacre in Warf Jérémie, a neighborhood in the Cité-Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince. The attack, orchestrated by the notorious gang leader known as Micanor “Wa Mikanò” Altès and also Monel Félix, resulted in the deaths of a reported 184 people, including several elderly victims, during retaliatory violence over the past weekend. In a statement posted on the Prime Minister’s Facebook, officials condemned the killings and pledged to hunt down those responsible.

“A red line has been crossed, and the state will mobilize all its forces to track down and eliminate these criminals,” said the Haitian government. “Justice will strike with exemplary rigor. The government extends its sympathies to the families of the victims.”

“These latest killings bring the death toll in Haiti this year to a staggering number of 5,000,” Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Monday in Geneva, Switzerland, during a press conference marking Human Rights Day.

“This year has been marked by an appalling number of people killed or seriously injured in conflicts, both on and off the battlefield,” said Turk, calling for efforts to stem the flow of arms to Haiti, Sudan, and Myanmar.

Haitian police have not responded to The Haitian Times’ request for comment on the massacre that occurred over the weekend in the Haitian capital. 

Although the Prime Minister’s office released a public statement, the Transitional Presidential Council did not respond to The Haitian Times’ request for details about the incident or how they plan to respond. The Prime minister’s statement mirrored similar ones issued in the past. The council’s communications manager told The Haitian Times that a response would be provided later today.

The massacre took place in the Cité Soleil commune around the Warf Jérémie seaport. The murders were purportedly ordered by Micanor, who lost his child and is convinced that practitioners of Vodou living in the area caused his son’s illness and death.

The local organization Committee for Peace and Development (CPD), in a statement published online on Dec. 8, said it identified around 20 victims, mostly elderly people who had lived in the area for over 30 years. The organization indicated that many victims’ bodies were mutilated and burned in the street. The majority of them were men and women over 60 who were murdered inside their homes.

“He decided to cruelly punish all the elderly people and Vodou practitioners who, in his imagination, might be capable of sending an evil spell to his son,” the CPD statement read. 

“The gang soldiers were tasked with identifying the victims in their homes and taking them to the gang leader’s stronghold to be executed.”

The Committee for Peace and Development confirmed that the gang imposed a ban on movement in the neighborhood to continue targeting practitioners of Vodou and elderly people to murder them.

The organization noted that Micanor is not new to committing crimes against Vodou practitioners. In June 2012, he executed 12 elderly women and mambos, falsely accused of witchcraft, according to the organization.

This new massacre is part of a wave of violence by gangs against civilians living in poor neighborhoods. It occurs in a context where gangs are spreading terror in areas such as Solino, Nazon, and Carrefour Aéroport and have made threats of attacks on other areas like Christ-Roi and Delmas 30.

Last week, two law enforcement officers were killed in Nazon, Port-au-Prince, in a shootout with the “Viv Ansanm” gang, according to local media reports. Over the weekend, the Bel-Air gangs launched an attack in the Poste Marchand area. They burned several houses and forced residents to flee their homes.

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