NEW PROVIDENCE, Bahamas (ABP) -- Bereaved families, government leaders and concerned members of the community gathered Sept. 27 at a Baptist church in the Bahamas to draw attention to rising murder rates there.

While regarded by most Americans as a dream tourist destination, locals in the Bahamas are increasingly concerned about an apparent breakdown of law and order, especially around the capital city of Nassau. With a population estimated at 305,000, the nation's annual murder rate is 23 per 100,000 -- four times that of the United States.

New Covenant Baptist Church in New Providence, Bahamas, unveiled a memorial wall bearing names of 94 men and women who died violently over the last 10 years. The church's founding pastor, Simeon Hall, raised $6,000 to build the monument to point out that individuals murdered in the Bahamas are more than just statistics.

"We do it because we want to stand with you," Hall, well known in the Bahamas for social activism, told family members of those named on the wall. "We feel your pain, and I pray that we will learn to stand with one another."

Religious leaders have criticized politicians in the predominantly Christian country for reducing funds allocated for fighting crime. 

Phillip Brave Davis, a member of the Bahamian Parliament, called the memorial long overdue. He called on government leaders to adopt stronger deterrents for crime and programs to rehabilitate juvenile offenders.

"We cannot afford to play politics with people's lives," Davis said. "We must pursue policies that are best for the Bahamas regardless of who may have created them."

Before 2000, the main cause of murder in the Bahamas was domestic violence. More recently, the main motive has appeared to be armed robbery.

"In our country today it's more popular for a young man to associate himself with a gang than the Boys' Brigade [a British Christian youth organization] or a youth group at church," Carlos Reid, a pastor and reformed gang member who now runs the youth group Youth Against Violence, said at the dedication ceremony.

"Almost every area of our country is infested with gangs," Reid said, according to the Nassau Tribune. "Do we allow this anti-social culture to become the social culture that we live by in the Bahamas?"

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This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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