Chased from their homes by gangs, thousands of Haitians languish in shelters in limbo
Published:Friday | June 23, 2023 | 2:25 PM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A gang rampaged through the Cite Soleil slum, killing and raping and setting fire to hundreds of wood-and-tin homes. Forced out of the neighbourhood, one family of four lived on the streets of Port-au-Prince until they were struck by a truck as they slept.
Two brothers, 2 and 9, died in the November accident.
Jean-Kere Almicar opened his home to their distraught parents, then another family, then another, until there were nearly 200 people camped out in his front yard and nearby.
They are among more than 165,000 Haitians who have fled their homes amid a surge in gang violence, with nowhere to turn in this capital of nearly 3 million people.
Almicar, who once lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania but moved back to Haiti in 2007, uses his own money.
“There was nothing I could do except tell them to come in,” Almicar said. “Their home doesn't exist anymore. If they go back, they're going to be killed.”
Some 79,000 people are temporarily staying with friends or family, but another 48,000 have crowded into dozens of makeshift shelters like Almicar's or sought refuge in parks, churches, schools and abandoned buildings in Port-au-Prince and beyond.
The situation is overwhelming nonprofits and non-governmental organisations.
“The government is not relocating anyone,” said Joseph Wilfred, one of several volunteers in charge of an abandoned government building in Port-au-Prince that houses nearly 1,000 people, including him and his family.
Tens of thousands of Haitians have languished in these makeshift shelters for almost a year.
They sleep on the hard floor or on flattened cardboard boxes.
Belongings are stuffed into big rice bags pushed up against the walls of packed rooms.
The gangs that chased them out of their homes and control up to 80% of the capital, by most estimates, are now recruiting children as young as eight at shelters.
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