April 20, 2010
The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) reports on relocation efforts ahead of the rainy season. CSM notes that many displaced people have been forced out of their camps, with bulldozers destroying their tents. The article also points to a lack of coordination in the relocation efforts, generally slowing progress and resulting in people having to move multiple times. CSM writes:
For some, the place is called Mais 54 Caradeux. For others, Toto Camp, and yet others still, Toussaint Louverture camp, in honor of the leader of the revolution that led to Haiti’s independence.
Regardless, the future of the 1,507 registered families living on this dusty, rolling terrain is uncertain.
About two weeks ago, government bulldozers showed up after dark and, without warning, began to level the haphazard maze of bed sheets and sticks. People grabbed what they could before their homes toppled.
Since then, more than five large patches of land on the multi-acre site have been razed. According to Joachi Thermilus, vice-president of the self appointed Mais 54 Committee, 483 tents have been destroyed. He’s not sure why and doesn’t know who to ask.
“At the very least,” he says, “someone from the government could have come to talk to us about what they were going to do.”
The article continues, looking at the issue of coordination:
Lack of communication and coordination is a major problem in the already complicated process of relocating some 1.3 million people left homeless after the Jan. 12 quake. Some families have moved three, four, even five times.
Wilfrid Civile is one of them. His resources, and his energy, are depleted.
He’s been told the newly leveled plots are for the thousands of residents living on the grounds of St. Louis de Gonzague, a private school miles away.
“Fine for those people,” he said. “But what about me? They are there, and I’m here. This doesn’t make sense. We are the ones who should stay.”
Neighbor Martide Sarazen also watched her tent fall this week.
She considers herself lucky, though, because on Monday she received a yellow bracelet from the French Red Cross.
She doesn’t know why, nor what it entitles her to, but it will be more than what she has now. No non-governmental agency has delivered any kind of aid – not water, food, tents or a hygiene kit – in the Toto camp.
The French Red Cross on site refused to say what the bracelet entitled recipients to, nor would it say how many bracelets it handed out.
To read the entire article, click here.
