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Hundreds of people crowded into a church near Haiti’s capital on Sunday for the funeral of four of the 47 people killed in a recent gang attack so brutal that it shook a country that has long struggled with violence.
Mourners wiped away tears, raised their hands and cried out as coffins arrived at a church in the farming community of Kenscoff.
“We thank everyone who came in solidarity with the families that died and those who lost their loved ones,” Pastor Jean Robert Dorlus said. “God will open a space to receive them.”
Inside the church, people swayed to gospel music. Some wailed as their shoulders shook. The church was so packed that dozens had to stand outside, peering through the windows, as they honored those being laid to rest: a mother, father and their son, and a 70-year-old man whose body had been set on fire by the gang members.
“I’ve known them for a long time,” said Yvonne Marleus, a Kenscoff resident who lost a cousin in the attack. “These are people who are respected in the community.”
Gangs abducted more than 50 people during the attack, although they recently released six children and seven women following an intervention by community leaders and UNICEF.
It was one of the biggest mass kidnappings in Haiti in recent years, and survivors have organized protests and blamed police for not preventing the attack.
“They didn’t act in time to stop the carnage,” Marleus alleged.
Haiti’s National Police has said that it ordered an investigation to establish the truth about the attack, and whether it was “due to complicity or negligence.”
Outside the church, civilians stood guard with automatic weapons, ready to repel any potential new gang attacks with the help of police officers stationed nearby.
Kenscoff resident Jean Calixte Juste said he and two cousins survived the attack “by luck.”
“I almost died,” he recalled. “I almost fell into a ravine running. This is the worst and most terrible night I’ve ever experienced.”
He didn’t know the four people whose funerals were held Sunday, but he said he wanted to honor their memories.
It wasn’t clear when funerals of the other victims might be held.
Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights Office, said that some 150 heavily armed gang members participated in the Aug. 23 attack. She said they first killed 13 people who tried to flee and then pursued 50 more who had sought refuge inside a church.
“After forcing them out from the premises, they executed 22 of them on the church courtyard and 12 others behind the church,” she said.
Dozens of others were injured, and more than 2,600 people were left homeless.
Overall, gang violence has displaced a record of nearly 1.5 million people in recent years across Haiti, where more than 3,050 people were reported killed from January to June, according to the U.N.
Armed men control an estimated 70% of Port-au-Prince and swaths of land in Haiti’s central region and beyond, and they are also seeking to seize territory in Kenscoff.
“I’m ready to leave,” said Juste, one of the residents. “Because after this, I don’t think we’re going to survive another big attack.”
___
Coto reported from Havana.
