A crowd of angry teenagers dressed in black and white gathered in a narrow street in the Haitian capital.
They stopped in front of a cemetery and carried coffins on their shoulders, tears streaming down some faces.
“Viv ansam manje li!” They were chanting loudly in Haitian Creole as they walked around, the coffin was slowly moving and their 16-year-old friend was inside.
His chant accused a gang alliance called Live Together of the murder of John-Roselette Joseph. He was hit by a stray bullet earlier this month in his community of Solino, which has been repeatedly attacked by gunmen.
Finding a way to find loved ones killed in the relentless violence by gangs in Haiti’s capital and beyond is becoming increasingly difficult in a country where burial rituals are sacred and the dead respected.
More than 2,500 people were killed or injured in the first three months of the year alone, according to United Nations,
Victims of gang violence are left to rot in the street, hunted by pigs and dogs, as an increasing number of areas become too dangerous for people to go out and retrieve bodies. Some bodies are never seen again, especially those of Haiti’s National Police officers, who are killed by gangs.
Still, there are people like Joseph’s friends and family who braved the sounds of gunfire to take to the streets so they could give their loved ones a proper burial.
Death and life are closely intertwined in Haiti, where many people believe that the body needs a ceremonial resting place so that their spirits can pass on to the afterlife.
On a scorching Saturday morning, a handful of musicians played drums and trumpets as Joseph’s friends and family walked into a small and crowded cemetery, lifting the coffin aloft and passing around tiny bottles of Barbancourt rum.
The screams grew louder as his friends opened the coffin and bid farewell, swearing revenge.
“Solina will never die! We will always stand and fight,” said Janvier Johnson, 28.
“raw is War!” shouted the other man, wiping his brow.
Joseph was killed last Sunday around 5 p.m. He had gotten a haircut at a barber’s shop in hopes of going back to school and was crossing the street to go home when a bullet hit him in the neck, Frantz, 24. Paulson said. Older cousin.
Paulson is familiar with the difficulty of burying people amid persistent gang violence. His elder brother was killed by a stray bullet last month and his mother died last year. They all lived in Solino, one of the last strongholds port au prince It is yet to be taken over by the gangs that now control 80% of the capital.
In Solinao, considered a strategic location, gangs have been targeting the area by firing from rooftops. Bullets took the lives of three other people the same week Joseph died.
As a result, community leaders have closed down Solino, and controlled who enters the working-class neighborhood, which is home to dozens of police officers.
Although many people in Solino refuse to speak to journalists, on the day Joseph was buried, the community welcomed a team of journalists from the Associated Press.
His mother, Daphne St. Cyr, recalls how Joseph loved school and wanted to become an agronomist. That said, he was a big fan of football and played often.
“Ever since he was a kid, he would kick whatever he could,” she recalled with a serious face.
He was obedient and had good relations with many people in the neighborhood, St. Cyr said.
“Everyone loved him, all the kids, all the adults,” she said. “He respected everyone.”
Joseph’s elder sister stood silently beside her mother, refusing to say anything.
“I don’t want to lose her,” St. Cyr said, looking at his daughter. “I want him to leave the country.”
The gang alliance formed by a former elite police officer named Jimmy Charizier, known as BarbecueHas been blamed for the murders and attacks in Solino.
The neighborhood of about 80,000 people already has nine large temporary shelters filled with families fleeing the violence, said Daniel Sentias, a community leader who vowed that Solina would not be taken over by gangs.
“We protest. That’s how we stay strong,” he said, calling on people to help Solinao. “We’re not going to run away.”
Joseph was buried a week after he was murdered, with his family relieved that they had found a place for him as gangs blocked access to many areas of the capital, even shrines.
“Not all cemeteries are available,” said Nicky Nadir, a musician who played at the funeral. “There are places you can’t go.”
Pastor Claudy Midy, who owns the funeral home that helped bury Joseph, said the only solace he can offer is to sit families down and explain that death is part of life.
He said burial is very important in Haiti, especially when someone dies young.
Midi was consoled that Joseph’s family was able to bury him. When people call a funeral home but say they have no body to bury, all they can give them is a poster with the person’s photo and a brief symbolic ceremony.