Haiti gang massacres 110 after accusing them of using voodoo – DW – 12/09/2024
www.dw.com
A Haiti gang boss ordered the killing of more than a hundred people who appeared to be practicioners of voodoo after accusing them of casting spells that killed his son.

Summary

Haitian gang leader Monel “Mikano” Felix reportedly ordered the massacre of at least 110 people in Port-au-Prince’s Cite Soleil slum after accusing elderly voodoo practitioners of cursing his son.

Victims, primarily voodoo followers, were killed with knives and machetes over two days.

Cite Soleil, a gang-controlled area, has become emblematic of Haiti’s worsening gang violence, which persists despite international interventions.

Voodoo, recognized as a formal religion in Haiti, has deep historical roots but remains stigmatized amid ongoing violence and unrest.

    • TimeNaan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      217·
      21 days ago

      Religion here is only a pretext for settling scores and exercising brutal power. That’s usually how it goes.

      If it wasn’t for religion there would be another “othering” aspect that would be used to separate the insider from the outsider group - race, sexuality, gender etc.

      • PlasticLove@lemmy.todayEnglish
        131·
        21 days ago

        We’re born with a race, sex, and gender. We are not born with a religion.

        Religion can safely be dropped and one huge cause of so many conflicts can go away. It wont solve 100% of the problem, and we will still fight over stuff we can’t control but it’s still worth it to try even for a partial win.

      • pimento64@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        410·
        21 days ago

        That’s just it. Some people really want to believe there’s a way out from endless suffering, and point to religion like we wouldn’t find something else to propagate suffering with. The horrible truth that fedora-tippers shrink from is that religion is an intrinsic aspect of the human condition that will never, ever go away. We even have completely secular cults now. Arguably Scientology isn’t secular because they believe in insane shit like space ghosts (because Scientology is just a rip-off of Mormon space lore) but we do have completely non-spiritual, non-supernatural belief systems that are functionally religions (talk to someone who firmly believes in Bigfoot or that the moon landings were faked and tell me they’re not in a religion). We have medical conspiracy cults like Anti-Vaccine and Chronic Lyme Disease, wellness cults like intermittent fasting (which is literally just anorexia plus sophistry) and semen/fecal retention, and the deliberate degeneration of corporate America into cults—my last job had quarterly meetings that included a chated incantation (of our mission statement) and selected readings from the founder’s book followed by a speech about the lesson we can take away from that reading.