At least 184 people were killed in Haiti's capital Cite Soleil district over the weekend in what officials describe as targeted attacks against elderly residents and suspected voodoo practitioners, marking one of the deadliest episodes of gang violence this year.

The UN human rights chief Volker Türk confirmed the death toll, which includes 127 elderly victims. According to the National Human Rights Defence Network (RNDDH), the violence was orchestrated by local gang leader Monel Felix, known as Mikano, who controls the Wharf Jérémie area.

The RNDDH reports Felix ordered the killings after consulting a voodoo priest about his son's mysterious illness. When the child died on December 7, gang members began systematically targeting elderly residents, with witnesses describing mutilated bodies being burned in the streets.

"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," said a statement from the Haiti-based Committee for Peace and Development (CPD).

"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.

The massacre highlights the deteriorating security situation in Haiti, where gangs control approximately 85% of the capital Port-au-Prince. The violence has displaced more than 700,000 people nationwide, half of them children, with the death toll this year reaching 5,000, according to UN figures.

The weekend's brutality follows October's massacre in Pont-Sondé, where the Gran Grif gang killed 115 people in retaliation against residents who had supported local resistance to extortion schemes.

The Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission, deployed to support the Haitian National Police, remains underfunded and poorly equipped to challenge heavily armed gangs. The UN has renewed calls for member states to provide urgent financial and logistical support to the mission.

Meanwhile, Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council, tasked with organising elections and restoring democratic order, appears to be making limited progress amid ongoing political turmoil.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the “horrific” attack, urging member states to step up support for Haiti's security mission and calling for a thorough investigation into the killings, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on December 9.

The UN began evacuating staff from Haiti's capital last month as intensifying gang violence gripped Port-au-Prince, whilst UNICEF reported an alarming 70% spike in child recruitment by armed groups.

Similarly, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has suspended all operations in Haiti's capital amid escalating threats from police and vigilante groups, marking a dramatic escalation in the Caribbean nation's long-running security crisis.