GENEVA – Hampir 200 orang terbunuh dalam keganasan hujung minggu yang kejam di ibu negara Haiti, kata Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) pada Isnin, dengan laporan bahawa seorang ketua kumpulan mendalangi penyembelihan pengamal voodoo.
Pembunuhan itu diawasi oleh “ketua geng yang berkuasa” yakin bahawa penyakit anaknya disebabkan oleh penganut agama itu, menurut pertubuhan awam Jawatankuasa Keamanan dan Pembangunan (CPD).
“Dia memutuskan untuk menghukum dengan kejam semua orang tua dan pengamal voodoo yang, dalam khayalannya, akan mampu menghantar jampi buruk kepada anaknya,” kata satu kenyataan daripada kumpulan berpangkalan di Haiti itu.
“Askar kumpulan itu bertanggungjawab untuk mengenal pasti mangsa di rumah mereka untuk membawa mereka ke kubu ketua untuk dihukum bunuh,” tambahnya.
Pesuruhjaya hak PBB Volker Turk berkata pada hujung minggu bahawa “sekurang-kurangnya 184 orang terbunuh dalam keganasan didalangi oleh ketua geng kuat di ibu kota Haiti.”
“Pembunuhan terbaharu ini menjadikan jumlah kematian tahun ini saja di Haiti kepada 5,000 orang,” katanya kepada pemberita di Geneva.
Kedua-dua, CPD dan PBB berkata pembunuhan beramai-ramai berlaku di kawasan kejiranan pantai barat ibu kota Cite Soleil.
Haiti mengalami ketidakstabilan selama beberapa dekad tetapi keadaan bertambah buruk pada Februari apabila kumpulan bersenjata melancarkan serangan terkoordinasi di ibu negara Port-au-Prince untuk menggulingkan perdana menteri ketika itu Ariel Henry.
Geng kini menguasai 80 peratus bandar dan walaupun misi sokongan polis diketuai Kenya, disokong oleh AS dan PBB, keganasan terus meningkat.
CPD berkata kebanyakan mangsa keganasan yang dilakukan pada Jumaat dan Sabtu berusia lebih 60 tahun, tetapi beberapa orang muda yang cuba menyelamatkan orang lain turut menjadi mangsa.
“Sumber yang boleh dipercayai dalam komuniti melaporkan bahawa lebih daripada seratus orang telah dibunuh beramai-ramai, mayat mereka dicacatkan dan dibakar di jalanan,” kata satu kenyataan.
Lebih 700,000 orang kehilangan tempat tinggal di Haiti, separuh daripada mereka kanak-kanak, menurut angka Oktober dari Pertubuhan Antarabangsa untuk Migrasi PBB.
Voodoo dibawa ke Haiti oleh hamba Afrika dan merupakan budaya utama negara itu. Ia diharamkan semasa pemerintahan kolonial Perancis dan hanya diiktiraf sebagai agama rasmi oleh kerajaan pada tahun 2003.
Walaupun ia menggabungkan unsur kepercayaan agama lain, termasuk Katolik, voodoo telah diserang secara sejarah oleh agama lain.
AN-AFP
184 killed in Haiti capital violence over weekend: UN
GENEVA — Close to 200 people were killed in brutal weekend violence in Haiti’s 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 “powerful gang leader” convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, according to civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD).
“He 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,” a statement from the Haiti-based group said.
“The gang’s soldiers were responsible for identifying victims in their homes to take them to the chief’s stronghold to be executed,” it added.
UN rights commissioner Volker Turk said over the weekend that “at least 184 people were killed in violence orchestrated by the leader of a powerful gang in the Haitian capital.”
“These latest killings bring the death toll just this year in Haiti to a staggering 5,000 people,” he told reporters in Geneva.
Both the CPD and UN said that the massacre took place in the capital’s 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.
“Reliable sources within the community report that more than a hundred people were massacred, their bodies mutilated and burned in the street,” a statement said.
More than 700,000 people are internally displaced in Haiti, half of them children, according to October figures from the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Voodoo was brought to Haiti by African slaves and is a mainstay of the country’s 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.
AN-AFP