UN Reports 184 Killed by Armed Groups in Haiti's Capital

At least 184 people were killed in Haiti over the weekend in violence orchestrated by a gang leader, the United Nations said today, bringing the country's death toll this year to 5,000.

"Over the weekend alone, at least 184 people were killed in violence orchestrated by a powerful gang leader in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, in the Cité Soleil neighborhood," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said at a press conference in Geneva.

"These latest killings bring the death toll in Haiti this year to a staggering 5,000," Turk said, giving no further details on the events that took place over the weekend in the Haitian capital.

The New York Times reported that at least 100 people had been killed over the weekend, citing a non-governmental organization based in Port-au-Prince: the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights.

Contacted by Agence France-Presse, the organization did not respond.

Another non-governmental organization in Haiti, the Group for Peace and Development (CPD), said that "more than a hundred people" were murdered in the Haitian capital on the orders of the leader of one of the criminal gangs that has controlled a large part of the territory for several years.

According to the same source, it was a retaliation for the death of one of his sons, who the gang leader believes "became ill as a result of a curse".

The non-governmental organization refers to the practice of voodoo, an animist religious tradition with strong roots in Haiti.

Specifically, the alleged massacre has not yet been confirmed by independent sources or by the United Nations.

Today, the UN reiterated that the country is suffering from serious political instability and a security crisis linked to the presence of armed gangs accused of murder, kidnapping and sexual violence.

Gang violence has been escalating since February.

Armed groups control 80% of Port-au-Prince.

The violence has forced more than 700,000 residents, half of them children, to flee their homes, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

With the support of the UN and the United States, a multinational police support mission led by Kenya began deploying to Haiti this summer.