‘People are praying to be saved’

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AP):

The massive crowd that would gather once a year at a revered waterfall in central Haiti where the faithful would splash in its sacred waters and rub their bodies with aromatic leaves was not there on Wednesday.

Powerful gangs in March attacked the town of Saut-d’Eau, whose 100-foot-long waterfall had for decades drawn thousands of Vodou and Christian faithful alike.

The town remains under gang control, preventing thousands from participating in the traditional annual pilgrimage meant to honour the Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, closely associated with the Vodou goddess of Erzulie.

“Not going to Saut-d’Eau is terrible,” said Ti-Marck Ladouce. “That water is so fresh it just washes off all the evilness around you.”

Instead, Ladouce joined several thousand people who scrambled up a steep hill in a rural part of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, on Wednesday to honour Erzulie and the Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel at a small church that served as a substitute for the waterfall.

Like many, Ladouce thanked the Virgin Mary for keeping him and his family alive amid a surge of gang violence that has left at least 4,864 people dead from October to the end of June across Haiti, with hundreds of others kidnapped, raped and trafficked.

“People are praying to be saved,” he said.

A CHURCH BURSTING AT ITS SEAMS

Daniel Jean-Marcel opened his arms, closed his eyes and turned toward the sky as people around him lit candles, clutched rosaries and tried to push their way into the small church that could not hold the crowd gathered around it.

Jean-Marcel said he was giving thanks “for the grace of being able to continue living in Port-au-Prince,” where gang violence has displaced more than 1.3 million people in recent years.

“There is nowhere for us to go,” he said, adding that he and his family would remain in Haiti even as people continue to flee the ravaged country despite an immigration crackdown by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, US authorities deported more than 100 Haitians to their homeland on the latest such flight.

Jacques Plédé, 87, was among those dressed in all white who gathered to give thanks in Port-au-Prince, of which 85 per cent is now controlled by gangs.

He recalled helping build the small church but never thought it would serve as a substitute for the Saut-d’Eau waterfall.

“It’s very disgraceful for the country that the gangs are taking over one of the nicest waterfalls where people go to pray privately,” he said. “Life is not over. One day, if I’m still alive, I’ll make it back to Saut-d’Eau.”