As many as 200 people were slaughtered over the weekend by followers of a rebel leader who believed his son became ill because of the group.The dead were followers of Vodou, a sect which originated in the ancient kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Nigeria, Benin, and Togo.) The Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said the killings were overseen by a “powerful gang leader” convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the Guardian reported Monday.“He decided to cruelly punish all elderly people and Vodou 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.”The massacre brings the total of dead in Haiti's gang violence this year to more than 5,000, with 700,000 displaced.The Guardian said Vodou was brought to Haiti by enslaved people from Africa and is a mainstay of the country’s culture. It was banned during French colonial rule and recognised only as an official religion by the government in 2003.
As many as 200 people were slaughtered over the weekend by followers of a rebel leader who believed his son became ill because of the group.The dead were followers of Vodou, a sect which originated in the ancient kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Nigeria, Benin, and Togo.) The Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said the killings were overseen by a “powerful gang leader” convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the Guardian reported Monday.“He decided to cruelly punish all elderly people and Vodou 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.”The massacre brings the total of dead in Haiti's gang violence this year to more than 5,000, with 700,000 displaced.The Guardian said Vodou was brought to Haiti by enslaved people from Africa and is a mainstay of the country’s culture. It was banned during French colonial rule and recognised only as an official religion by the government in 2003.
