SENATOR RUBIO PRESS

Sen. Rubio: "We have a moral duty and a responsibility to engage with and jointly work with all of the island’s stakeholders for the future of the Haitian people."

DISPLACEMENTS DUE TO GANG VIOLENCE IN PORT-APRINCE

Situation Report No 2

This report is produced by OCHA Haiti in collaboration with humanitarian partners. It covers the period from 8 to 14 June 2021 and is based on the information and data available to date. The next report will be issued on or around 20 June.

•  Since 1 June, an upsurge in inter-gang clashes has caused the displacement of an estimated 10,000 civilians in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. The inter-gang violence and clashes are having a direct and indirect impact on the whole population of that area. Frequent shootings and regular roadblocks are limiting access to entire neighbourhoods and spreading fear among the population. 

•  Local authorities, the Haitian Red-Cross, national and local NGOs are playing a vital role in responding to the most urgent needs but due to limited resources available and limited access, less than a third of the IDPs is currently receiving assistance and no assistance is provided to host families or the stranded population of Martissant. 

•  The initial response provided is partly drawn from preparedness stocks for the hurricane season. While partners are taking these exceptional measures, this will affect the response capacities of the humanitarian partners to potential hurricane impacts. As such, funding for these operations and for the replenishment of these contingency stocks is urgently needed. 

•  Gender-based violence is reported among the displaced population, with sexual abuse, including rape, among IDPs, in host families and as offer of “sex for shelter”. The ongoing insecurity is limiting capacities for monitoring and addressing support requests. 

•  The current situation is also having an impact on other departments, especially in the Southern Peninsula, due to limitations on the movement of people and goods. 

•  The United Nations are calling for an end to the violence to allow the civilian population to return to their neighbourhoods and resume their daily life and allow humanitarian access to the victims. 


         The mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to Coordinate the global emergency response to save lives and protect people in humanitarian crises. We advocate for effective and principled humanitarian action by all, for all. www.unocha.org

         HUMANITARIAN CONSEQUENCES

         In Martissant, the recent upsurge in inter-gang clashes took a turn for the worse over the past days resulting in the burning and looting of houses, deaths and injuries amongst the civilian population. Gang members attacked several police stations in Martissant and neighbourhood and assaulted two journalists who were reporting on the displacement situation. Residents reported that some corpses remain unattended on the streets and that gang members are requesting money to deliver the deceased to their relatives.

         A large community of more than 1,500 people have settled in the Carrefour Sports Centre but the local authorities have indicated that current sites are not suitable for long-term stay and that beyond the next few weeks, the displaced should be returning or move to other suitable locations.

         CHALLENGES

         One of the main challenges is access and security for humanitarian aid deliveries. Because of the security situation, access to some of the IDP sites, in particular Carrefour and Bas-Delmas areas, is difficult from Port-au-Prince. In Martissant, 'windows' of a few hours are allowing for the safe transit of certain deliveries with an escort. However, the situation is highly volatile, requiring humanitarian partners (including the Haitian Red Cross and local and national NGOs) to negotiate access and take all possible security risk mitigation measures. Partners are looking at the best possible relief delivery solutions, including the use of the UNHAS helicopter and coastal (sea) route. Current access limitations require a well-coordinated and streamlined logistical response from partners, including the consolidation of cargo to limit the number of deliveries required.

         These constraints also directly affect the Haitian population. Particularly worrisome are reports of limited access to health facilities and basic services to and from affected neighbourhoods. People are trapped in their neighbourhoods and unable to freely move. Images have circulated of pedestrians walking, at the request of gangs, with their arms raised in the air.

         Limited access also affects the humanitarian partners’ ability to identify the needs and locating displaced people who are not within identified sites remains a significant challenge, as many are dispersed across the metropolitan area or have relocated in the provinces with relatives.

         In addition to the challenges mentioned above, a strategy for long term resettlement of IDPs having lost their homes to destruction and fires is needed as well as a sustainable solution for the temporarily displaced population currently sheltered in large facilities such as the Sports Centre. In those large sites, the risks of COVID-19 spread and protection remains a concern.

         Amid all these considerations, the operating environment still remains that of a pandemic. Since May 2021, COVID-19 infections and fatalities rose more than fivefold following the arrival of new variants. Officially, Haiti has recorded 15,895 infections and 333 deaths from COVID-19 as of 5 June among its 11 million people. Although these numbers are relatively low compared to elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, data is limited due to low testing rates, leading many to believe that the real numbers are much higher. Additionally, hospital overcrowding due to COVID-19 is reducing capacities to care for the injured and those affected by violence, including GBV. This is of concern for both the population and the humanitarian staff. Several confirmed cases have been reported within the humanitarian community, with some requiring medevac. As such, the humanitarian response requires COVID-19 containment and mitigation measures for both staff and the IDP population, especially those sheltered in crowded spaces.

         Several donors are supporting response efforts of implementing agencies (e.g. ECHO and BHA) but available resources remain limited.

         HUMANITARIAN NEEDS

         At least 5,500 of recently displaced people from Martissant, Delmas 75, Bas-Delmas, and Saint-Martin are in immediate need of assistance. According to local authorities and local partners on the ground, the most urgent needs are drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, shelter, food, bedding kits, access to health and nutrition assistance, and psychosocial support.

FAKE RICE

Foreign entrepreneurs are selling a fake version of Madan Gousse Rice

AyiboPost.com

“Madan Gougous” rice inundate the Haitian market. Officials in charge of cultivation matters at the Ministry of Agriculture say they think the “Madan Gougous” rice variety may still exist, while according to multiple farmers interviewed, it has long disappeared from the country.

Haiti has not produced “Madan Gougous” rice since the 1990s, according to the testimony of several large farmers. Due to the international reputation of this rice, foreign countries continue to use its name. Some of this fake “Madan Gougous” rice landed in Haiti.

“There was a disease called black straw that ravaged “Madan Gougous” and “Lakrèt” rice fields”. Even the “Lakrèt” rice was hard to find for a time. It is because of this disease that the farmers came up with the TCS rice, but the disease did not spread throughout the whole Artibonite plains. “There were “Madan Gougous” rice fields elsewhere, which is why I think it may still exist”. But after Hurricane George in 1998, Haiti lost the “Madan Gougous” rice variety.

AYISYEN MELE

By Garry Pierre-Pierre | The Conversation

Haitian Times

Growing up in Haiti, I remember that when we left home for school, or went elsewhere, no one had a key. Only the help of the house kept watch. Doors were left wide open during the day, to be locked up only when we went to bed at night. For most people at the time, you locked your doors out of a sense of routine, not out of fear for your safety.

But back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, Port-au-Prince was a sleepy, mostly middle-class city. Bel Air, Turgeau, Carrefour Feuilles and other neighborhoods were artist colonies where novelists mingled with sculptors and teachers. Downtown was largely left to commerce and was a hub of transport. 

Petion-ville was an ex-burb and Delmas was a mostly wooded area. 

We’ve come a long way since those tranquil days, when the worry was more about Papa Doc goons, the Tonton Macoutes. But at that time, the rules  were clear. Stay away from politics and don’t speak ill of the wise old doctor turned dictator, and you were fine. 

The other fear we harbored was the mythical loup garou, known in Vodou lore to be a spirit that can cast spells on you or “eat” bad children. 

Today, we find ourselves talking about internally displaced people fleeing Bel Air, which is caught up in fratricidal gang warfare. How did we get here? The decline of Port-au-Prince, once a wondrous Caribbean city where foreign diplomats sent their children to the public schools for quality education started during that idyllic period I recall.

The musicians, functionaries, teachers, and the other professionals began a slow migration out of the city and the country. Old neighbors reunited on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and in Brooklyn, New Jersey and Montreal. The Canadian government, looking to increase its ranks of French speakers, offered professionals legal status and in many cases, a job equal to what they were doing in Haiti. 

My parents were part of that early exodus. I would join them in 1975 — June 24 to be exact. It was one of those searing moments in a person’s life, even at that tender young age. I was ambiguous about coming to America. I missed my friends and the soccer matches and the table tennis tournaments.