In Haitian folklore, a loup-garou is a person who is possessed by a spirit and can turn into a wolf
The “werewolves” who devote themselves to this end are sorcerers, usually females, possessed by insatiable spirits, who are believed to turn themselves into a beast or even a dog, cat, chicken, snake or another animal to suck the blood of babies and young children.. The tendency to become a werewolf can be inherited, or it can be the result of the rash act of buying evil spirits.
There is also a superstition that werewolf spirits known locally as Jé-rouge (red eyes) can possess the bodies of unwitting persons and nightly transform them into cannibalistic lupine creatures.
After the earthquake that shattered Haiti in January 2010, several people accused of being loups-garous have reportedly been lynched and killed. By night, mythical creatures were said to prowl the refugee camps, snatching and murdering children.
Many Haitians are convinced that people possessed by evil spirits turn into wolves after dark, a version of the werewolf legend. These “loups-garoux”, or “wolf-men”, are thought to be preying on defenseless people sleeping in the open.
“The loup-garou is profiting from the earthquake to eat the children,” said Milot Bazelais, a civil servant who was left homeless by the quake and also works for a charity group to help neighbourhood children.
Most of Haiti’s 9 million people are Roman Catholics but many also practice voodoo, a religion with African roots.
