A year after the Haiti earthquake, many are still looking for shelter and food – patriotic

The tin-roofed house rented by Erleen Castell and Dunord Ernst was among more than 130,000 homes damaged or destroyed by the powerful earthquake that struck southern Haiti last year, killing more than 2,200 people.

In the days following the 7.2-magnitude earthquake, they collected sheets, tarpaulins, and wood and set up shelter for themselves and their three children. More than a year after the August 14, 2021 earthquake, the family is still living in the same makeshift tent as hundreds of others, still wondering if anyone would help them.

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If recent history is any guide, few people will.

The Associated Press visited several of the camps around the southern coastal town of Les Cayes, which was one of the worst hit, and people repeatedly complained that no government officials visited them despite repeated promises that they would come to help.

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While the family was waiting for help, Ernst died of prostate cancer last year. So today, Castle is alone fighting for her family’s survival as many are struggling to resume their lives after the earthquake.

On Thursday morning, she tried to breastfeed her 9-month-old daughter. But after a year surviving on scraps in a makeshift camp, Castle had no milk. The young girl, Wood Brannan Ernest, fell asleep during her failed attempt.

Duverseau Marie Cepht shows a photo of her, before the amputation of one of her legs after she was injured last year by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck the Lagodray region of Les Cayes, Haiti, Friday, August 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Audlin Joseph)

“I don’t have anything to count on them,” Castle said.

Even worse, others fall victim to the earthquake.

In one of the camps, friends of the landlord try to reclaim the land where the refugees settled. The thugs tore down huts, threw stones at families, and tried to set the camp on fire twice in recent months.

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The camp, like many others, also flows quickly when it rains, forcing hundreds to flee to higher ground while watching their belongings sink.

Said Rinil Sene, a 65-year-old who lost four children in the earthquake, and who once worked in the nearby fields of vetiver, a plant whose roots produce an oil used in luxury perfumes.

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Families walk to get well water, sometimes letting sediment settle before drinking it. Many of them do not have a job. They depend on the neighbors for their only meal of the day.

Those living in the camps say they have heard over the radio that local government officials have met with international leaders about the post-earthquake plight, but wonder if they will ever be helped.

“So far, they’ve all been promises,” said 55-year-old farmer Nicholas Wilbert Ernst. “I don’t know how long I should wait.”

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On the anniversary of the earthquake, a group of government officials held a press conference describing the progress made by the administration of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who began leading the country shortly after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on July 7, 2021.

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The government says it has planted 400 tons of beans, cleaned 10,000 meters of canals, distributed 22,000 bags of fertilizer and donated more than 300,000 baskets full of basic goods. It provided $100 per vulnerable person in tens of thousands of homes in the South. The state also opened a temporary bridge over the Grand Anse River in early August.

But UNICEF warned last week that more than 250,000 children still do not have access to adequate schools and that the majority of 1,250 schools destroyed or damaged have not been reconstructed. He pointed out that the lack of funding and the escalation of violence delayed the reconstruction process.

Increasingly powerful gangs have taken control of the main road from the capital, Port-au-Prince, to Haiti’s southern region, disrupting efforts to provide food, water and other essential goods to those in need.

Many organizations were forced to pay bribes to avoid kidnapping employees while driving south.

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Cindy Cox Roman, CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit HelpAGE USA, said there is a “great feeling on the part of the people out there that they are on their own in this.”

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Cassendy Charles, director of the emergency program at the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Mercy Corps, estimates that it could take the region up to five years to fully recover from the earthquake. The organization had to use boats and planes to ferry supplies to the south, but even that is complicated because the port is located near the slum of Sait Soleil, where more than 200 people are believed to have been killed recently due to fighting between rival gangs. province.

“The situation is volatile,” he said.

Meanwhile, double-digit inflation has deepened poverty. Mary Daddy Dorvergos, a kindergarten teacher who lives with her two children at a camp, said a bag of rice that cost 750 gourdes ($6) last year now costs 4,000 gourdes ($31).

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Berlin Laguerre, a street vendor who once sold second-hand clothes, said the money she saved to buy more clothes went to feed her children. There was nothing left to send them to school or buy them uniforms or books.

And the kids ask me, ‘Mom, when am I going to go back to school? My friends said, “What about me?”

One morning, Laguerre stood in line with other people in front of tent #8, where Bowzel Evenio was making sweet coffee for neighbors in need, a system that became key to survival.

“I can’t do this every morning, but on the days I do, I feel happy to be able to share coffee with my neighbours,” said the 48-year-old.

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But after a moment, she said she was worried that her 14-year-old daughter might be raped in the camp. Rape was a common occurrence in similar camps that spread after the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000 Haitians.

Jocelyn Jost became the unofficial director of Camp Deverell after the last major earthquake. He and other self-appointed leaders have handwritten dozens of letters and visited local nonprofits in an effort to get government officials’ attention.

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“We are doing everything we can to survive,” he said.

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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

© 2022 Canadian Press

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