July 13, 2010
During his interview with Democracy NOW!, Sean Penn discussed the problems with the first relocation site, Camp Corail. Some 5000 people had been moved to the new camp from Penn’s Petionville camp because of the risk of flooding and mudslides. Camp Corail has been criticized because of its distance from the city center, barren and hot landscape and the lack of planning that went into the site. Penn also noted that some of the promises made to those who relocated have not been met:
The promises made included a tent as a transition, so they are in those tents in transition. And they would then be moved into temporary shelters into another sector in the same camp. Those were also the promises that we are still pushing to have go forward, and its something that I want the media to look at everyday. Because these people were promised temporary shelters, and they should get them.
Heavy rains last night showed the danger associated with the absence of the promised transitional shelters. Yesterday’s storm flooded the area, and IOM reports:
Flying debris from the storm caused six people to be injured and damaged or destroyed 344 tents, forcing around 1,700 people to seek emergency shelter overnight.
While plans had called for 125,000 transitional shelters to be built, still not enough to house all of the displaced, thus far less than five percent have actually been built. Furthermore, with the hurricane season having begun, less than two percent of the displaced have been housed in transitional shelters.
