PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — At least 45 people have been killed across the nation amid accusations they are using “black magic” to spread cholera, the director of a voodoo association said Friday.
Most of the killings are occurring in the southern coastal town of Jeremie, where people are being lynched, set on fire and attacked with machetes, said Max Beauvoir, a Voodoo priest. But he said killings also have been reported in Cap Haitien and the Central Plateau.
Beauvoir said he has contacted police to no avail, asking them to prevent further killings.
Local police did not return calls seeking comment on Beauvior’s numbers Friday.
Fear and confusion have surrounded the cholera epidemic, which has killed more than 2,400 people and could affect another 600,000 or more, experts say.
The United Nations recently created an international scientific panel to investigate the source of the deadly epidemic, which many Haitians suspect could be a U.N. base in Meille, outside the Central Plateau town of Mirebalais.
Roughly half of the 9.6 million people who live in Haiti practice voodoo, a blend of West African and Christian religion.
