A week after earthquake, Haiti bury their dead

Haiti: Families gathered in churches in southwestern Haiti over the weekend for church and funeral services, a week after an earthquake hit the region, killing over 2,200 people and destroying tens of thousands of buildings.

In some of the worst-affected townships and villages of the most impoverished Caribbean nation, the collapse of churches has left residents in the open fields mourning.

At the Paris Saint-Joseph de Simon Roman Catholic Church on the outskirts of Les Cayes, a southwestern city that suffered the heaviest of the earthquake, about 200 worshipers gathered early for the first Sunday Mass since the disaster.

"Everyone was crying today about what they had lost," said the priest, Marc Orel Saël. "And everyone was stressed because the earth was still shaking," he added, referring to almost daily aftershocks that had affected nerves all week.

The quake struck Haiti during a political eruption following President Jovenel Moise's killing last month. Accusations in a report by a local human rights group created new turbulence over the weekend.

The National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) statement on Moise's murder claims that the new Prime Minister Ariel Henry spoke by telephone with one of the main suspects, Joseph Felix Badio, on the assassination night.

Jean-Junior Joseph, a close aide to Henry, communicated on Twitter on Saturday evening that the prime minister had narrated him that he had "never" spoken to Badio, a former Haitian official.

Last Saturday's earthquake claimed the lives of at least 2,207 people. A total of 344 people are missing, while 12,268 people were harmed, officials told. The disaster developed a devastating rage in 2010 that killed tens of thousands of people.

Rescue efforts are thwarted by floods and damage to access roads, generating tensions in some of the regions hardest hit.

Distress over delays in aid has begun to boil over in recent days, as citizens have robbed aid trucks in several villages in the south, and they have displayed safety concerns.

On Sunday night, the French consulate in Haiti said 40 French rescue workers had arrived, bringing a water treatment system to Les Cayes that would provide up to 220,000 litres (220 cubic meters) of drinking water per day.

In the village of Marceline, dozens of grievers attired in elegant black or white suits assembled in front of a ruined Catholic school to hold a funeral service for four members of the same family who were killed in the 7.2 magnitude quake tremor.

On Saturday, men and women cried over the four white coffins: three little ones for the children and a larger one for the family's matriarch, 90-year-old Marie Rose Morin.

"I'm upset to look at these coffins," stated Edouard Morin, her son.

Morin also buried his girl child, Kelly (15), his cousin Wood-Langie (10) and his cousin Carl-Handy (4).

"I would feel better if I was buried in the same grave as my mother," he said.

The four-way funeral costs $ 1,750, a huge amount for farmers in rural parts of a country where the gross domestic product per capita is less than $ 1,200, according to World Bank data.

Franck Morin, Wood-Langie's father, remembers leaving for work as a manager just minutes before the ground began to shake. He chases back, only to see his wife bleed from her legs and sob in front of the hope that was once their home.

The two dug over the rubble for two days till they found their daughter's body.

"She was admired by the whole society, she always danced in church," Morin stated.

Outside different Catholic church viewing the main park in Les Cayes, dozens of worshipers gathered for Sunday Mass in the yard next to the damaged cathedral.

"Let us fulfil the work of the Lord," the priest said as he concluded the ceremony.