Haitians in massive struggle to find shelter
Source: Agencies |
January 26, 2010, Tuesday
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Print Edition
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THE collapse of much of Port-au-Prince has a large part of Haiti struggling just to find a place to sleep.
As many as 1 million people - one person in nine across the entire country - need to find new shelter, the United Nations estimates, and there are too few tents, let alone safe buildings.
It could take experts weeks to search out sites suitable for enough tent cities to hold earthquake refugees, the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency, said on Sunday.
"We also need tents. There is a shortage of tents," said Vincent Houver, the Geneva-based agency's mission chief in Haiti.
Houver said the agency's warehouse in Port-au-Prince holds 10,000 family-size tents, but he estimates 100,000 are needed. The organization has appealed for US$30 million to pay for tents and other needs and has received two-thirds of that so far, he said.
Haiti's government wants the estimated 700,000 homeless huddled under sheets, boards and plastic in open areas of Port-au-Prince, a city of 2 million, to look for better shelter with relatives or others elsewhere. Officials estimate that about 235,000 have taken advantage of its offer of free transport to leave the city, and many others left on their own, some even walking.
An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 have returned to the region around the coastal city of Gonaives in northern Haiti, a city abandoned by many after two devastating floods in six years.
"Living in Port-au-Prince is a problem. Going to Gonaives is another problem," said Maire Delphin Alceus. "Everywhere you go is a problem. If I could, I would have left this country and been somewhere else by now. But I have no way to do that."
Her daughter, Katya, was among the thousands killed in Gonaives and the surrounding Artibonite area by the floods of 2004's Tropical Storm Jeanne. The family moved to Port-au-Prince, where the earthquake killed her 26-year-old son and her half-sister, who provided for them by importing clothes and perfume from Miami for resale in Haiti.
What's left of the family is back in Gonaives, which is overlooked by mountains denuded by over-farming and rampant tree cutting for firewood that have cleared a path for destructive floods.
While more people left Port-au-Prince, the capital was shaken by yet another aftershock on Sunday, one of more than 50 since the great quake on January 12 that has panicked survivors into running out into the street. Some just froze in fright on Sunday. The US Geological Survey said it registered magnitude 4.7, but there were no reports of further damage.
More than 150,000 quake victims have been buried by the government, an official said, but she said that doesn't count the bodies still in wrecked buildings, buried or burned by relatives or dead in outlying quake areas.
"Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble," Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said. Asked about the total number of victims, she said, "200,000? 300,000? Who knows the overall death toll?"
Lassegue said that the government's figure of 150,000 buried from just the capital area was based on figures from CNE, a state company.
As many as 1 million people - one person in nine across the entire country - need to find new shelter, the United Nations estimates, and there are too few tents, let alone safe buildings.
It could take experts weeks to search out sites suitable for enough tent cities to hold earthquake refugees, the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency, said on Sunday.
"We also need tents. There is a shortage of tents," said Vincent Houver, the Geneva-based agency's mission chief in Haiti.
Houver said the agency's warehouse in Port-au-Prince holds 10,000 family-size tents, but he estimates 100,000 are needed. The organization has appealed for US$30 million to pay for tents and other needs and has received two-thirds of that so far, he said.
Haiti's government wants the estimated 700,000 homeless huddled under sheets, boards and plastic in open areas of Port-au-Prince, a city of 2 million, to look for better shelter with relatives or others elsewhere. Officials estimate that about 235,000 have taken advantage of its offer of free transport to leave the city, and many others left on their own, some even walking.
An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 have returned to the region around the coastal city of Gonaives in northern Haiti, a city abandoned by many after two devastating floods in six years.
"Living in Port-au-Prince is a problem. Going to Gonaives is another problem," said Maire Delphin Alceus. "Everywhere you go is a problem. If I could, I would have left this country and been somewhere else by now. But I have no way to do that."
Her daughter, Katya, was among the thousands killed in Gonaives and the surrounding Artibonite area by the floods of 2004's Tropical Storm Jeanne. The family moved to Port-au-Prince, where the earthquake killed her 26-year-old son and her half-sister, who provided for them by importing clothes and perfume from Miami for resale in Haiti.
What's left of the family is back in Gonaives, which is overlooked by mountains denuded by over-farming and rampant tree cutting for firewood that have cleared a path for destructive floods.
While more people left Port-au-Prince, the capital was shaken by yet another aftershock on Sunday, one of more than 50 since the great quake on January 12 that has panicked survivors into running out into the street. Some just froze in fright on Sunday. The US Geological Survey said it registered magnitude 4.7, but there were no reports of further damage.
More than 150,000 quake victims have been buried by the government, an official said, but she said that doesn't count the bodies still in wrecked buildings, buried or burned by relatives or dead in outlying quake areas.
"Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble," Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said. Asked about the total number of victims, she said, "200,000? 300,000? Who knows the overall death toll?"
Lassegue said that the government's figure of 150,000 buried from just the capital area was based on figures from CNE, a state company.
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