Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Feb 15, 2010 / 18:54 pm
Haitians have remembered the victims of January’s devastating earthquake with three days of mourning and fasting. Stores, gas stations and banks have closed down and the roads have been emptied to make way for the event’s processions.
“Time has stopped in the different parts of Port-au-Prince,” reported Mathilde Magnier, Caritas Communications Officer in Port-au-Prince.
From dusk until dawn in Port-au-Prince, loudspeakers broadcast the Gospel, sermons and prayers. Writing in a report on the Caritas blog, Magnier described the mood as “a strange atmosphere of joy, despair and reverence.”
She said that Catholics, Protestants and followers of voodoo joined in the observance.