OVER 300 members of 18 churches in Kingston’s eastern belt staged a march in the troubled Mountain View area of the capital yesterday to call for peace and healing within the community.

The march, which culminated with a church service at a section of Mountain View Avenue, was welcomed by some members of the community who hoped that the uneasy calm which has prevailed in the last two weeks would continue unabated.

“I definitely am 100 per cent behind the peace initiative,” Maxine Dixon, a resident of Saunders Avenue told the Observer yesterday. Dixon, a former teacher at the Carlin Johnson Basic School at Saunders Avenue, said the institution had been forced to close for the past two years because of the violence.

“The war caused the school to close and the children can’t get the right schooling,” she complained. “Apart from that, I am out of a job.”

More than 20 persons have been murdered in the community since June 19 and police have maintained a heavy presence there since the latest upsurge in violence.

Yesterday’s multi-denominational march was organised by the Christian Coalition for Peace and Renewal, the brainchild of Pastor Carl Cunningham, who heads the Roosevelt Avenue, Rollington Town and Johnson Town Seventh-day Adventist churches.

“I was recently assigned to this area and have seen what is going on,” Pastor Cunningham said. “The church needs to be proactive and we will be keeping up this drive for peace and renewal in Mountain View.”

Cadesha Foote, a resident of Jacques Road, was present at the peace service and expressed the hope that the violence would end. Dressed in a skimpy outfit with her young child in her arms, the 19-year-old told the Observer: “It fi done, ’cause the pickney dem can’t go to school and it a stop progress fi some.”

One man who sat on the sidewalk some distance away from the prayer meeting was doubtful that the peace would hold.

“Boy, a nuff people dead and some man still want revenge, but we hope say the killing of the innocent people who no involve inna nuh wrongs stop still, ’cause dat nuh right,” the man said between huge puffs of marijuana smoke.