Port-au-Prince.- Hundreds of people attended the PapJazz music festival in the capital of sharp, which returned for the first time since 2021 with a modified program and strict security precautions amid the city’s serious security situation.
The international jazz festival was postponed in 2022 and last year relocated to the northern city of Cap-Haïtien over security concerns in Port-au-Prince, where the United Nations estimates gangs control up to 80% of the area.
“This is the festival of resistance to everything that is happening, our way of saying that we believe and want to move forward,” Milena Sandler, one of the festival’s organizers, told AFP.
“The event, in its 17th edition and ending Sunday, gives the residents of Port-au-Prince hope that they can dream, live together,” Sandler said.
The audience, mostly expatriates and middle-class Haitians, danced and sang every night, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, with groups performing local carnival music between acts.
According to the organizing group Haiti Jazz Foundation, PapJazz hosted between 550 and 850 guests each night from Thursday to Saturday. “The city is not dead despite everything,” stressed the organizer.
Violence in Haiti
Haiti, the poorest nation on the American continent, has been mired in crisis for years, with increasingly powerful armed gangs unleashing brutal violence and leaving the economy and public health system in pieces.
Homicides and kidnappings in the Caribbean country doubled last year, according to a recent United Nations report.
In response to security concerns, the PapJazz 2024 festival was shortened from eight to four days, with the concerts only held in a relatively safe residential neighborhood.
“Despite the difficulties, the festival witnesses an impressive capacity for resilience. It is a celebration of Haitian cultural wealth,” one of the attendees, Esmeralda Milce, who works in marketing, told AFP.
FUENTE: AFP
