Montreal's Haitian community honours man who died near Roxham Road border crossing
CBC
Dozens of people gathered at a funeral home in Montréal-Nord Sunday afternoon to pay their last respects to Fritznel Richard, a Haitian man found dead in Quebec earlier this month near an irregular border crossing.
Richardson Charles Alida, one of the few at the funeral who knew Richard, said the Haitian asylum seeker was alone in Montreal and wanted to reunite with his wife in the United States.
"I think he wanted to have legal status as well, because here he still didn't have a work permit and he didn't have his [permanent] residence," Alida said in an interview.
Alida, who met Richard while shopping in a convenience store, said he didn't get to know him well but remembers him as kind.
"I could see the beauty, the wisdom, the kindness that was in his heart. He was someone who loved people," he said.
While most people in attendance had never met Richard, many guests — the majority of whom were of Haitian descent — said they came out to show solidarity with their community.
"Even though [few here] knew him, he was a part of us," said Frédéric Boisrond, a Haitian-born sociologist at McGill University and one of the organizers of Sunday's funeral.
"We have an obligation to assure that each person lives and dies in dignity."
The body of 44-year-old Richard was found on Jan. 4 in a wooded area in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., near Roxham Road, a popular crossing point for asylum seekers coming to Canada. Police say he appears to have died of hypothermia while trying to enter the United States.
Frantz André, a spokesman for a Montreal-based group that helps undocumented people, said Richard was attempting to reunite with his wife and 18-month-old son in Florida, who both had left Quebec a few months prior.
Another 11-year-old son remains in Haiti.
Richard had been reported missing to Montreal police in late December but a search for him was called off on Dec. 29 because police believed he had entered the U.S.
In an interview earlier this month, Richard's wife told CBC News the couple struggled to make ends meet in the Montreal area, due to delays in obtaining a work permit and rising costs of food and housing.
"They arrived here, in a country that calls itself welcoming and where democracy reigns, to die here, in 2023. Is this our welcoming land?" André said during the funeral.