US EditionThousands of Haitians mark annual pilgrimage far from a sacred waterfall surrounded by gangs
HAITI, JUL 16 – Thousands of pilgrims honored the Virgin Mary at a small Port-au-Prince church after gangs seized the traditional Saut-d'Eau site, with over 5,600 gang-related deaths reported in 2024.
- On Wednesday, several thousand pilgrims scaled a steep hill to honor Erzulie Dantor and the Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, gathering in Port-au-Prince instead of at Saut-d’Eau’s waterfall.
- Amid early April unrest in Saut-d’Eau, the Canaan gang led by Jeff Larose attacked on March 31, and returned in early April with over 500 fighters, forcing residents to flee.
- The small church in Port-au-Prince burst at its seams with worshippers, while videos showed Jeff Larose inside Saut-d’Eau’s main church amid the pilgrimage.
- Due to ongoing gang violence, the town remains under gang control, preventing thousands from the traditional pilgrimage, as gang violence has killed at least 4,864 people from October to June.
- In recent years, displacement has worsened, with gang violence displacing over 1.3 million people in Haiti, according to Daniel Jean-Marcel.
19 Articles
19 Articles
Associated Press News
Thousands of Haitians mark annual pilgrimage far from a sacred waterfall surrounded by gangs
Thousands have been forced to forgo an annual pilgrimage to a revered waterfall in central Haiti, now in territory held by gangs, where they would splash among sacred waters and rub their bodies with aromatic leaves.
The crowd that used to gather once a year in a revered waterfall in central Haiti, where the faithful bathed in its sacred waters and rubbed their bodies with aromatic leaves, did not gather there on Wednesday.
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