Amid unprecedented chaos in Haiti, missionaries bring Christmas hope

In Haiti, where insecurity has devastated daily life since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, many religious groups are striving to celebrate Christmas amid growing chaos.

With gangs taking control over vast areas of the capital city Port-au-Prince and other parts of the Caribbean nation, the turmoil has led to the internal displacement of at least 700,000 people. The number of killings in 2024 has already surpassed 4,500.

The transitional presidential council and Kenyan-led security mission deployed in June haven’t proved effective in reestablishing democratic order. An estimated 85% of Port-au-Prince is under control of criminals.

The impact of the instability on the population has been catastrophic. Half of the nation has been facing acute hunger, according to the United Nations World Food Program. Over 1 million children are at risk of ceasing to attend school.

In such a dire scenario, the residents of districts that have been under attack for years will hold minimum Christmas celebrations. The missionaries are struggling to find words to console them.

“The great question is: What should be the message? One of real hope? Of faith?” asked Father Firto Regis, who lives in Carrefour, near the capital.

Things have only gotten worse and no glimmer of a solution can be seen, he told OSV News. The only hope that’s left is trust in God.

“We have to look for the Lord, the master of history and all events, who will come to grant us grace for a blessed year,” Father Regis said.

It is with such a spirit that Catholic religious like Sister Thérèse-Marie Pierre Fils, a member of the congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny, have been trying their best to celebrate Christmas with those who have few reasons to celebrate.

“We visited children who are living in camps earlier this month. On Dec. 22, we’ll come back with all the donations we collected and will distribute the items among them,” she told OSV News.

The sisters manage to obtain clothes, hygiene kits and solar lamps, as well as rice and chocolates for the kids. Four hundred children will receive the gifts.

“They (also) asked for books. Many had their houses burned and couldn’t get their school bags,” Sister Fils explained.

In Wharf Jérémie, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, December has been especially gloomy. Between Dec. 6 and 7, a local criminal chieftain ordered the killing of at least 184 residents, most of them senior citizens. The deaths apparently were motivated by a desire for revenge. After his son had fallen ill and died, the gang leader was allegedly persuaded that the boy died due to witchcraft practiced by elderly men, and so took out his vengeance on the seniors.

“At least two-thirds of the victims were relatives of children who study at our school. Two workers of our school were also murdered. Many kids are traumatized,” Brazilian-born missionary Brother Hélio Ferreira told OSV News. An earlier October massacre killed 115 people.

A member of the Brazilian Catholic group Missão Belém (Mission Bethlehem), whose charism is to be a family for those who don’t have one — especially drug addicts, beggars and the neediest in society — Brother Ferreira has been working in Haiti since 2010. He said that has been the worst year since he arrived.

“Things became very hard, but we couldn’t abandon our brothers when they needed us more than ever. So, we adapted our work in order to keep things running,” he said.

Missão Belém keeps a school for more than 3,000 students. Each kid is supported by a Brazilian or Italian donor. But even having money, many times the missionaries couldn’t buy food or water because the markets were closed or trucks couldn’t get into their district.

Despite all the sadness and trauma, most children see the school as a safe haven. As Brother Ferreira talked to OSV News, groups of students could be heard as they were rehearsing a choreographed dance to present to their colleagues during Christmas.

“We’ll have a Christmas supper with 100 teenagers on Dec. 24 and a festivity for 250 children on the following day. We’ll give them cookies and chocolates as gifts,” he said. For supper, the teenagers will have lamb and chicken, extremely rare food items in Haiti nowadays.

In such a context, little signals can have immense value. Brother Ferreira celebrated with fellow missionaries — four Brazilian sisters and an Italian brother — when he received a phone call from a Salesian priest who told him he would be able to celebrate a Christmas Mass at the school.

“We thought it would be impossible. That’s a signal that we can never lose hope,” he said.

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