The attack was brazen, broadcast live on the internet Heavily armed individuals stormed a Holy Thursday Mass and took a pastor and three parishioners while they were being filmed.
For Haitians it was a fierce reminder of the kidnappings and deaths affecting poor people tired of years of violence on the streets.
One of the victims of the segregation in the church, Steven Jérôme, spent the first night of captivity sitting in a chair, not being encouraged to close his eyes. Meanwhile, parishioners and relatives of the victims, including a sister of Jerome, Suze, were in a hurry to get money to pay for their rescue.
Growing violence caused businesses, banks and schools across Haiti to close this week in a protest they called “Black Thursday”. Some schools were temporarily closed due to the dangers that threaten these neighborhoods.
“Haitian society has been going to hell for a long time,” the office of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Port-au-Prince said in an April 12 statement. “Armed gang violence has reached unprecedented proportions.”
The human rights organization Fondasyon Je Klere says that in Haiti operates more than 150 gangs, some of which are engaged in kidnappings. Among the latest casualties are five priests, the director of a hospital, minors and a member of the presidential security force.
No exceptions are made with the poor.
Magdala Louis, 33, lives in a pond hut with her young son. They manage by selling hot dogs and recruiting students for a cosmetology school.
On January 6, five individuals with automatic weapons grabbed her by the neck while she was waiting in a car for a friend. The two were blindfolded and taken to a house, where they were asked who had money in their families. She replied that her mother and father had died.
The woman thought, “God, are you going to let me kill and leave my child alone?”
Her sister and neighbors went to the radio stations and insisted she was a hot dog saleswoman who could not afford a ransom.
In the end the friend’s family paid for the two, but Louis says he’s now scared to leave home to work. “I wish I had died in the (2010) earthquake so I didn’t have to go through that.”
The growing violence prompted the U.S. embassy in Haiti to recently issue a statement calling on the Haitian government to “Protect your citizens and intensify your efforts to bring the perpetrators to justiceThe Organization of American States made a similar statement.
The government of current President Jovenel Moïse says it has arrested many criminals, increased police presence and created a special unit to dismantle gangs.
Local police spokesmen did not return calls asking for comment, but Serge Therriault, police commissioner at the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti, acknowledged that “today there is a greater sense of insecurity and violence” even though the number of violent street episodes is comparable to that of previous years.
Therriault told police has been gathering information about gang leaders and blocking sectors where they operate.
“This generated some success,” he said. “The police are still looking for different ways to solve this. We need to let them find the most appropriate solution for the country with what they have.” The current situation, he noted, includes the growth of gangs “for political and socio-economic issues.”
The rise in violence complicates efforts to distribute aid in a country that has not yet recovered from the devastating 2010 earthquake, a deadly cholera outbreak and now the coronavirus pandemic, according to Pamela White, former US Ambassador to Haiti.
“It is very difficult to do this when the country is punished by violence, every day”, He pointed out.
New Prime Minister Claude Joseph told the AP that he attributed the increase in violence to unpopular political sectors that he said are trying to undermine the September general election.
Whatever the cause, violence alters the lives of all Haitians.
Roselaine Belizaire, a fashion design student who sells white-faced handmade to help pay for her tuition, said the shootings that arise when she returns home sometimes make her seek refuge in that of a friend.
“There are so many shots I start running and I lose my white-faced bag,” he expressed.
Jean Paul, 26, who sells food, said he was assaulted this month by gunmen who falsely accused him of bringing food to a rival gang. Crying, he remembered that a man shouted “Hit him! Hit him!”, Although he was later released.
The danger posed by stray bullets caused the organization Médecins Sans Frontières to transport 21 burn patients from its hospital to the Cite de Soleil district, said Aline Serin, head of the international group’s mission.
Suze Jérôme, who is a nursery school teacher, said she had to borrow “a lot of money” to pay for her brother’s ransom. “Money I don’t have, I’ll never have.”
He says that now that his brother has been released, he must see how he does to pay off the debt.
“I never saw a situation like this,” he recounted. “You’re not safe anywhere.”