(1 Nov 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – 1 November 2024
1. Various of Voudou practitioner pouring beverage and lighting candle at a tomb
2. Man carrying rifle, walking in graveyard
3. People around the tomb of Baron Samedi
4. Cross at tomb
5. Raymond Valcin, cemetery director, lighting candle
6. Valcin putting down candle at altar with skull and bones
7. SOUNDBITE (Haitian Creole) Raymond Valcin, director of Port-au-Prince National Cemetery:
"It is because of the insecurity that the day is very different from past years. The people, the Gede pilgrims, and the merchants who used to come did not come. There is nothing.”
8. Valcin pouring beverage over his head
9. Altar with a skull and food offerings
10. Woman touching cross on grave of Baron Samedi
11. SOUNDBITE (Haitian Creole) No name given, Vodou practitioner:
“This year is not good. There is nothing to see. It is not how Gede was celebrated in years past. It was beautiful, and now it is much colder.”
12. Close of food used for offering
13. People walking by the cemetery
STORYLINE:
Day of the Dead commemorations in Haiti were much more subdued on Friday with country continuing to experience a surge in violence.
In previous years, hundreds of revellers clad in white and clutching candles crowded into the main cemetery in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
But only a few Vodou practitioners ventured to commemorate the Day of the Dead this year.
The celebration comes at a time of deepening misery and violence in Haiti.
On Friday morning, armed men were spotted at the cemetery, located in an area that is part of the 85% of Port-au-Prince already under the control of the gangs.
Faithful surrounded the tomb of the first person buried in the Port-au-Prince cemetery, believing it housed the remains of the guardian of the dead, known in Haitian Vodou as Baron Samedi.
They lit candles and made altars with bones, food and jugs of moonshine rum known as cleren to offer to the spirits of the dead in return for protection.
The director of the Port-au-Prince Cemetery, Raymond Valcin, is himself a Vodou practitioner and was disappointed by the low turnout.
"It is because of the insecurity that the day is very different from past years," he said.
"The people, the Gede pilgrims, and the merchants who used to come did not come. There is nothing.”
A surge of gang violence that started in February this year has left thousands dead and many more homeless.
More than 1,740 people were reported killed or injured in Haiti from July to September, a nearly 30% increase over the previous trimester, according to the latest numbers released Wednesday by U.N. officials.
Vodou is an official and widely practiced religion in Haiti.
It was born in the 16th century when enslaved people from West Africa were forced to practice Catholicism and combined the saints with spirits from African religions.
AP video shot by: Pierre Luxama
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