Slain Haitian president’s hometown holds funeral amid violence

The body of slain Haitian President Jovenel Moise was returned to his hometown Friday for a private funeral amid heavy security following violent protests and fears of political volatility in the Caribbean nation. 

Jovenel Moise, who was 53 when he was shot dead in his home in the early hours of July 7, was interred in Cap-Haitien, the main city in his native northern region. Haiti's elite congregated Friday in the historic northern port city of Cap-Haitien for Moise's funeral.

Moise’s body arrived shortly after dawn at his family’s seaside property where the funeral is being held. Six officials carried the brown casket up a stage where they saluted it and stood before it in silence for several minutes. In an open-air funeral lasting  several hours, Moise’s coffin was draped in the red, white and blue Haitian flag and the presidential sash, and surrounded by flowers. Military guards kept watch, and soldiers performed the national and presidential anthems.

One by one, representatives of the government and foreign diplomats stopped to pay their respects to Moise’s widow Martine — who was seriously wounded in the attack that killed her husband, and required treatment in the United States.

His widow, Martine, the former first lady who was wounded in the early morning attack on July 7 that claimed her husband's life, addressed mourners.

''The family is living in dark days. To make the journey here to support us, to say goodbye to my president, to my husband, my friend, the father of my children, is a form of sympathy that brings strength and courage to the whole family and helps to overcome our trials," she said. She added, "When I met Jo, the man that would become my husband, the father of my children, I saw in him a brilliant, emotional and creative soul, a passionate and determined person, a sympathetic person, a playful person with a lot of charisma, a reserved young man, but so generous."

Despite her praise, the late president was not a popular man in Haiti. Many people accused him of failing to make progress on the country’s many woes and of taking on an authoritarian bent after he suspended parliament last year.

US President Joe Biden sent a high-level delegation to the funeral, including his ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and his new special envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote.

So far, more than 20 people have been arrested in connection with the assassination, most of them Colombians, and police say the plot was organized by Haitians with political ambitions and links outside the country.

But the case remains murky, with many unanswered questions, such as how no members of the presidential security detail were wounded in the brazen assault. Haitians have expressed shock that those tasked with protecting the president and his home failed him so abjectly. 

But in the capital city Port-au-Prince, many have far more pressing issues on their minds.

Since June, more than15,500 people in the city have had to flee their homes due to gang violence and rampant arson. City residents who manage to avoid direct exposure to violence are navigating skyrocketing inflation, frequent blackouts, and shortages of food and fuel, due in large part to gang activity chocking off key delivery routes.

And while the wealthy may still live comfortably in high-walled compounds on the city's loftier slopes, no amount of money can guarantee safety from the soaring threat of kidnapping. 

This has been a summer of fire in Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of homes across the city have been burned to the ground by gangs -- and even, some victims insist, by police battling the gangs. Marie Michele Vernier, press secretary for Haiti's National Police, says such accusations "have not been verified," adding that the police "could never conduct themselves that way."

Yslande, 38, and her three children were forced to flee her home in the Delmas neighborhood in the middle of the night on June 4. "There were people shooting at each other in the streets. The bandits came and said, 'You have to leave your home or you will die,'" Paul says.