Fear stalks Haitians as their murdered president is buried and gangs terrorize the capital

Stories of abduction, lethal attack and indiscriminate destruction are endless in Haiti’s seaside city of Port-au-Prince, where everyone seems to know someone who barely made it out alive — and where many did not, in what rights organizations describe as a particularly dangerous year even before the assassination of former president Jovenel Moise drew the world’s attention.Haiti’s elite were congregating Friday in the historic northern port city of Cap-Haitien for Moise’s funeral. Once he is laid to rest in his home region, expect political jockeying to recommence with vigor, with observers eager to see if the recent alliance between two rival prime ministers will hold; whether the interim government will finally hold elections as hoped for by the international community; and if Haiti’s civil society coalition can finally unite to propose an alternative transitional government. But in the capital city Port-au-Prince, many have far more pressing issues on their minds.Since June, In a press conference last week, Foreign Minister Claude Joseph — then acting Prime Minister — warned listeners that anyone seeking to impede the investigation would have to assassinate him first. Standing alongside Haiti’s Police Chief Leon Charles, he said that the assailants had miscalculated the government’s response to the assassination: “The killers thought they could kill the president and force the rest of the government to flee,” he said. The Haitian government’s response to atrocities committed against ordinary people has been somewhat less muscular, however.Haiti’s police forces are often themselves the target of criminal violence. According to the Haiti-based The proliferation of refugee encampments across the city testify to security forces’ current inability to address insecurity — and the government’s struggle to provide care for those who have been displaced. One sports center that has been turned into a temporary shelter can now only be safely accessed via helicopter, according to aid workers, due to gang activity in the surrounding neighborhoods. And at a school that has been transformed into temporary shelter for some 200 disabled people whose homes were also burned down, it is nearly impossible to walk from one end of the building to the other without bumping into or stepping on someone. “It is hot here, the people are laying on top of each other like sardines,” Philogene Jocelin, a coordinator and spokesperson for the disabled community, told CNN. “The government is not thinking about the disabled.”Asked about Moise’s death, he responds bitterly, “Whether the president is there or not, it doesn’t matter. His presence did not help us; his absence is none of our business.”While waves of arson have largely hit poorer, more densely populated neighborhoods, kidnappers have targeted poor and rich alike with abandon. According to CARDH, which tracks kidnappings, nearly 200 people were kidnapped in the month of June — compared to an estimated 91 in April, and 27 in March. Kidnapping even operates as a bulk business, with several large groups of people kidnapped in the second half of May, CARDH says. Last week, 16 people were taken hostage from a bus operated by local company “Sans Souci” — which in French means “no worries.” They were later released that night, a Sans Souci spokesperson said.One couple, husband and wife Chrisner and Merline, told CNN they were kidnapped in January in their Sunday finest, as they were exiting church. “At the end of the service we were on our way out, and there were some people standing outside already. When we saw them, we turned around to go back in through the open gate, but they rushed after us,” Chrisner told CNN. “They told us if we don’t pay the ransom they will kill us. They said that our pictures will be taken while lying dead on a pile of garbage, and that our family will have to collect our dead bodies from the garbage dump,” his wife Merline added softly. The couple asked that CNN withhold their last names due to safety concerns.They would spend five days as hostages, while their church raised money to pay the ransom — 600,000 Haitian gourdes, or around $6,300. The couple, a security guard and a cosmetics saleswoman, dismiss the idea that they will ever be able to pay back the sum to the community that raised it. Several kidnapping victims and their families told CNN that they were still working to pay off debts, after borrowing money from friends, employers and even banks to pay ransoms. And even they are relatively lucky; some families never manage to scrape together the funds demanded. In a case that has become notorious across the country even amid this year’s hundreds of kidnappings, a 5-year-old girl was reportedly found dead early this year with signs of strangulation. Her mother, a peanut vendor, told Reuters she had been unable to come up with the equivalent of $4,000 for ransom.’The pressure on Washington to do something will become irresistible’In the wake of Moise’s assassination, an unspoken concern of regional governments, including the United States, has been that political instability in Haiti could drive new flows of migrants toward their borders — what is often referred to in Washington as a migration “crisis.” Former US Ambassador to Haiti James Foley warned this week in The Atlantic, “Should endemic chaos turn into complete anarchy, sending Haitians in large numbers onto rickety boats heading toward Florida, the pressure on Washington to do something will become irresistible.” But crisis stalked Haitians for months before Moise’s death, and little protection has been offered against the deadly forces that push some to flee abroad. Last month, police in the nearby Turks and Caicos Islands intercepted a boat carrying 43 Haitians, and handed them over to immigration authorities for repatriation. For Chrisner and Merline, the shadow of fear that lies over Port-au-Prince now has a clear and specific shape. They are now too afraid of being kidnapped again to return to work, leaving home only for church, which has become a lifeline for them. Both would like to apply for asylum abroad, but the process of obtaining the necessary documents has been mired in bureaucracy. Contemplating escaping Haiti, their faces show little hope. “The way things are, we cannot get a break,” Merline said. “We cannot leave the country and we cannot live in security inside of it.”Reporting contributed by CNN’s Etant Dupain, Natalie Gallon and Matt Rivers in Port-au-Prince.