US Embassy – Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya in visit

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 14 octobre 2021

 They flee their home because of gang violence

Gang violence is forcing thousands of families to flee their homes in Port-au-Prince. However, some run only to encounter brutality inside the various camps scattered throughout the capital.

A whole village surrounds her, but the little girl feels alone in the Saint-Yves camp, in Delmas 5. Her days are short. Far too short to delay the night, and with it the repeated nightmare of sexual abuse.

“I cannot speak because my rapist lives in the camp,” murmurs the minor exhausted by the nocturnal rapes, and the constant death threats.

There are more than 1,100 citizens scattered all over the hard cement of the courtyard, and throughout the rooms under construction, without interior doors, of the Saint-Yves Presbyterian Church, which has been transformed into a refugee camp for those fleeing the fury of the gangs since June 14th.

“There are several cases of abuse, especially of vulnerable children,” reports Jules Riclais, member of the West Departmental Coordination for Civil Protection.

The occupants of this camp come mainly from Delmas 2. Everyone harbors a chilling story, proof of the worsening security situation in recent months, well before the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

“The bandits set fire to my house in Delmas 2, and asked me to empty the place,” shares a lady in her fifties. The tornado of violence released on this territory controlled by Jimmy Chérizier, nicknamed Barbecue, took the lives of her two children.

And the situation is getting worse. According to a report released June 14th by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), nearly 20,000 people are on the list of displaced people in the metropolitan area. 15,500 of them fled their homes beginning on June 1st, the start date of a bloody clash between the gangs of the Martissant area.

Hervé Télémaque: A Hopscotch of the Mind

Since the late 1950s, Hervé Télémaque has created an expansive body of work with a unique and playful visual vocabulary, featuring abstract gestures, cartoon-like imagery, and mixed media compositions. Through paintings, drawings, collages, objects and assemblages, he brings together striking combinations of historical and literary references with those of consumer and popular culture. Incorporating images and experiences from his daily life, the artist’s extensive body of work consistently draws connections between the realms of interior consciousness, social experience and the complex relationships between image and language.

Born in 1937 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Télémaque left for New York in 1957 entering an art scene dominated by Abstract Expressionism. In 1961, he moved permanently to Paris, associating with the Surrealists and later co-founding the Narrative Figuration movement in France with art critic Gérald Gassiot-Talabot and artist Bernard Rancillac. A reaction against the dominant trend towards Abstract art and the developing movement of Pop art in North America, Télémaque’s Narrative Figuration often results in works with a Pop sensibility that incorporate consumer objects and signs. The artist then inflects these images with an astute criticality, producing work in dialogue with current events, such as the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, US intervention in the Dominican Republic, and contemporary French politics. 

A vehement commitment to highlighting the histories and contemporary resonances of racism, imperialism and colonialism remains a constant throughout his career, with works that intimate the insidious ways that these structures continue to permeate our everyday lives. In later works, Télémaque refers more directly to his Haitian heritage and experience as part of the Caribbean diaspora.

This exhibition is Télémaque’s first institutional show in the UK. It brings together works made from the late 1950s until the present day, highlighting the enduring themes of the artist’s work through his multi-faceted practice. Rather than taking a chronological approach, A Hopscotch of the Mind proposes a non-linear exploration of Télémaque’s visual vocabulary, encouraging viewers to jump between media and periods, forming their own associations between the disparate fragments of his idiosyncratic narration.

WITH DANIEL FOOT THE USA HAS THE POSSIBILITY TO RECALIBRATE ITS POLICY IN HAITI

AYIBOPOST

RALPH THOMASSAINT JOSEPH

No official in Haiti can claim to be more powerful than Daniel Foote right now. The special envoy of President Joe Biden on the Haitian crisis can decide who can be president or prime minister of the country. His presence eclipses that of Helen La Lime, representative of the U.N.’s bureau in Haiti (BINUH), who had been acting as proconsul before Foote’s appearance on the scene. If outside interference wore the costume of diplomacy in the old days, today, it’s clear that the U.S. is openly controlling power in Haiti. Here’s the problem: A complete meltdown of the country’s institutions, notably during the past eleven years.

History will not forget that elite squads of the national police force, trained and supported by the U.S., lost face, as well as six officers when confronting a group of bandits in the Village de Dieu shantytown, nor could this same police force prevent the assassination of the most protected man in the country, President Jovenel Moise.

Some will say that when you’re trying to identify the cause of the permanent crisis in Haiti, it’s easy to point the finger at outsiders, especially the United States. To understand consequences from their root causes, it would be unhealthy not to attribute the U.S. the full measure of its responsibility for this debacle. To pretend otherwise would be to deny an important truth, which would please many American politicians.

Forbes magazine reports that the war in Afghanistan cost the U.S. $300 million every day for twenty years. Around $83 billion dollars were spent to train and arm the Afghan army. This same army didn’t stand up to the assaults of the Taliban after the U.S. announced its retreat from the country. When he had to justify the reasons for this American debacle, Joe Biden pointed the finger at the Afghanis.

“We gave them every opportunity to create their own destiny,” he said on August 16, 2021. “What we could not give them was the will to fight for that outcome.” This has a bit of a feeling of déjà vu for us in Haiti.

After the 2010 earthquake, the international community seemed to offer this same opportunity to Haiti. Billions of dollars were spent in the name of Haitians for the reconstruction of the country, but no results of those investments were visible. Former American president Bill Clinton directed the Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti which channeled hundreds of millions of dollars of aid and promises of aid.

After the disaster of the 2010 earthquake, Haiti wasn’t ready to organize elections that same year. But, in spite of the dozens of thousands dead and more than a million homeless under tents, the international community—as usual—decided elections should be organized anyway. So it is that Michel Martelly was designated, president. USAID financed his supporters during the electoral campaign. The French ambassador at the time, Didier Lebret, showed his true colors publicly, wearing the pink and white bracelet of Martelly’s party.

Michel Martelly ran a government that was among the most corrupt in the history of the country. More than 64% of the Petrocaribe funds were spent during his administration. The party he created, PHTK (Parti Haitien Tet Kale), prioritized policies of the dismantlement of public institutions and gangsterization of the country. When Martelly’s little dog Jovenel Moise followed him to the presidency, Moise doubled down on his master’s impunity and corruption. As a result, hundreds of Haitians were massacred in opposition neighborhoods; hundreds more were kidnapped, hundreds were raped.

Beginning in 2018, Haitians turned out in the streets for the country’s biggest demonstrations ever. Young people took to the streets in considerable numbers to denounce corruption and demand accounting for the Petrocaribe monies. Their Petrocaribe movement was also a useful pretext for hundreds of thousands of average Haitians to demonstrate their concern about the dangerous dysfunction of the state. A Petrocaribe trial would have great symbolic value.

Eleven years later, the U.S. has sent its special envoy into the midst of an unprecedented crisis in Haiti. Since the upheavals of 2018, the country has fallen into a cycle of instability that has its character. There were the Petrocaribe demonstrations, the Peyilok strikes, the street law of the gangs, the kidnappings, and the massacres in targeted neighborhoods.

Daniel Foote has now come to collect the debris of a regime that was put into place in Haiti with U.S. support in 2011. In 2017, the Banque de la Republique d’Haiti has stopped publishing its annual report that gives an idea of the country’s economy, a report regularly issued since 1998, even after the earthquake in 2010.

In May 2011, when Michel Martelly became president, the National food security council reported that the cost of the food basket was 837 HG per person per month. In April 2021, the cost of the basket had risen to 2112 HG. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars were being siphoned off by the powers that be, and corruption scandals were ubiquitous. After 11 years. The general hospital is not rebuilt, nor the presidential palace, nor the parliament. Gangs have multiplied, and along with them, violent crime.

When the youth of Haiti went out into the streets to demonstrate against corruption, the U.S. did not support them. Because of their involvement, some of them lost jobs and the support of their friends. Several Petrochallengers, as they are called, had to leave the country because of threats against them. The assassination of Antoinette Duclaire, a young, outspoken rights activist, was understood as a message to those who publicly stood up against corruption. No one has been arrested for her killing. Today, such impunity is so profound that even the president of the Republic has become its victim, with even the security team he selected incapable to enlighten us about his murder.

There is undoubtedly an overwhelming popular mandate against corruption. But can we remake the country with these old figures still trying to run it?

On the one hand, there is Joseph Lambert. “I think, and I insist, that an experienced political personality is necessary to conduct the ship into port,” said Lambert on September 1. Twice a senator and president of the Senate, Lambert was always there when the ship of state was adrift. He typifies the blasé political class that reduces governing into a simple sharing of small privileges.

Then there is Laurent Lamothe, whose name in Haiti is forever automatically linked to the Petrocaribe scandal. Yet, meanwhile, he puts himself forth in the international media as “an acceptable voice” to discuss the country’s crisis and, indeed, to provide solutions.

Besides the pandemic, Biden’s first year has been marked by two great crises, the immigration crisis the debacle in Afghanistan.

To curb the flux of migrants crossing Mexico’s border into the U.S., the Biden administration has decided to attack the problem at its source. This means resolving the problem in the migrants’ country of origin, where all the conditions force them to leave to seek a better situation elsewhere. Biden delegated this work to vice-president Kamala Harris, who has targeted corruption as the crux of the problem. During her visit to Guatemala, Harris spoke about the need to fight corruption and establish justice systems.

“Most people don’t want to leave their homeland, the place where they grew up, the place where their language is spoken, the culture they know. Most people don’t want to leave the country where their grandmother lived. And when they do leave, generally it’s for one of the following two reasons: They are fleeing some violence, or, should they remain, they will not be able to satisfy the basic needs of their families,” Harris said.

During the last eleven years, tens of thousands of Haitians, especially young people, have fled the country to go to Brazil to Chile. Thousands are now together at Mexico’s northern border, hoping to get into the U.S. After the 2010 earthquake, their despair mainly was economic. Today, that poverty is not coupled to the gang violence in Haiti’s streets, which is pushing tens of thousands more to leave their homes and get out of the country. How will the U.S. react when thousands of boat people arrive on the coast because of gang violence that’s fed by the Haitian powers that be and by Haiti’s private sector?

To reform American policy in Haiti means correcting the mistakes made in 2011. Unfortunately, the power of the Martelly/Moise/Henry PHTK regime is a pure product of the Democratic administration of Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

So many of those who took to the streets to denounce corruption have now left the country. With kidnappings and rapes increasing, thousands of professionals have already left. The country is now open to the political mafia and the predatory elite to devour the entrails of those who have not yet decided to leave. Although the state is dead, the vultures of the traditional political class are nonetheless fighting over this rotting cadaver. SO many want to become president by demanding that we find out how a president could have been assassinated in his bedroom without a single security agent receiving a scratch or firing a shot.

If we’re going to reconsider U.S. policy in Haiti, we have to consider the actors’ liabilities. So many among them who now present themselves as future leaders are the same ones who participated in the demolition of the country over the past thirty years and more.

The original version of this article was published in French. The English translation is from Amy Wilentz.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 6 octobre 2021

 
Panama government warns thousands more migrants coming for border

Samuel Chamberlain

Haitian migrants are seen crossing the jungle of the Darien Gap in Colombia heading to Panama. AFP via Getty Images

Panama’s foreign minister warned Wednesday that up to 60,000 migrants, many of them of Haitian origin, are making their way through the Central American country toward the US-Mexico border — threatening the Biden administration with a fresh illegal immigration crisis.

Erika Mouynes claimed in an interview with Axios that her government had notified the White House of the most recent migration surge, which culminated in more than 15,000 people gathering under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas and waiting to be picked up by border authorities earlier this month. 

“We’ve engaged with every single authority that we can think of, that we can come across, to say, ‘Please, let’s pay attention to this,'” said Mouynes, who called on Washington to coordinate with other countries in the region on a plan to deal with the issue.

“We all have a role to play in this issue, and the regional approach is the correct approach,” she said. “It is impossible for Panama to solve it on its own.”

Panama’s foreign minister warned that up to 60,000 migrants could be headed toward the US-Mexico border.AFP via Getty Images

Mouynes met Monday and Tuesday in Washington with members of Congress as well as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. One lawmaker, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), told Fox News Wednesday that Mouynes had described how her country has seen “over 80,000 Haitian immigrants, Haitian evacuees, crossing from South America, through Panama, headed to the United States [this year].”

“This is all happening because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refuse to enforce the law,” Cruz added, “and have essentially said anyone who wants to come to America, they’re gonna resettle them, they’re gonna give them benefits, they’re gonna let ’em stay, and it’s resulting in a public health crisis and a humanitarian crisis.”

Erika Mouynes claimed her government had notified the White House of the most recent migration surge. AFP via Getty Images

Axios, quoting estimates from the Panamanian government, reported that nearly 27,000 migrants are expected to pass through the hazardous jungles of the Darien Gap region in this month alone — more than made the trip in all of 2019. 

“Let’s recognize that they all are heading toward the US,” Mouynes said.

Most of the migrants left Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake for economic opportunity in South America. As jobs there have dried up, their hopes have focused on the US.

Mouynes told Axios that Panama has started a migrant quota system in partnership with its two immediate neighbors, Columbia and Costa Rica. However, she added, other South American countries need to set up similar systems in order to keep migration numbers manageable. 

Mayorkas revealed earlier this week that 13,000 Haitian migrants from the most recent surge will have their cases heard by an immigration judge — 10,000 of whom have been released into the United States. 

Sen. Ted Cruz said that Mouynes claimed Panama has seen over 80,000 Haitian immigrants crossing from South America, through Panama, headed to the United States.REUTERS

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), another 8,000 had returned “voluntarily” to Mexico, while an additional 4,000 were being processed for expulsion or removal by DHS. Nearly 4,000 more were sent back to Haiti on a series of deportation flights. 

President Biden famously handed off responsibility for the border issue to Vice President Kamala Harris, who embarked on a much-touted trip to Mexico and Guatemala in early June in an effort to address the “root causes” of illegal immigration. 

However, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), pronounced last week that Harris’ tour had done nothing to fix the problem.

IMMIGRATION / Fanm News and Update

Family Action Network Movement's Executive Director, Marleine Bastien and Florida Immigrant Coalition Co-Executive Director, Tessa Painson joined a special delegation of Haitian leaders/stakeholders invited by the Department of Homeland Security to assess the conditions of Haitian refugees seeking asylum in Del Rio, Texas.

Security Council Session on the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH)

4 October 2021

Statement of Special Representative Helen La Lime

Mr. President, distinguished members of the Council,

1. It is an honor to once more provide you with an update on the situation in Haiti, which is currently undergoing one of the most fraught periods of its recent history. Already reeling from the ghastly assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on 7 July, the country was struck on 14 August by a devastating earthquake which affected over 800,000 people in its southwestern peninsula. These two events have led long awaited national and local elections to be further postponed. Meanwhile, insecurity has become rampant in Port-au-Prince, as kidnappings are once again on the rise and gangs have extended their control over large swaths of the city. In addition, thousands of migrants who had sought better living conditions in neighboring countries are being repatriated. For most observers, it is difficult to envision an end to the country’s seemingly never-ending crises which have pushed the resilience of the Haitian people to the brink.

Distinguished members,

1. Since assuming office on 20 July, Prime Minister Ariel Henry has spared no effort to reach a political agreement with the various factions of the Haitian polity. Adopting an inclusive and consensual approach, he has sought to create minimal conditions for the holding of legislative, local and presidential elections, and thus steer a country in the midst of a profound governance crisis towards the regular functioning of its democratic institutions. In a positive step, actors from across the political spectrum and civil society organizations, including former opposition and ruling coalition groups, adhered to such an agreement on 11 September. The pact captures key demands expressed by national stakeholders, such as the formation of a new Provisional Electoral Council and the inclusion of the diaspora. It also foresees the holding of elections no later than the second half of 2022.

1. One can only hope that Haitian political and civil society leaders will continue to work together to findcommon ground around a common project that will contribute to fostering a more appeased climate in which decisive action can be taken and essential reforms enacted

1. To be sure, many points of convergence exist. For instance, there is a large national consensus on the need to reform the 1987 Haitian constitution, a charter widely viewed as contributing to the recurrent political and institutional instability. The draft Constitution submitted by the Independent Consultative Committee to the Prime Minister on 8 September should provide a basis for further constructive and inclusive debate on ways to reshape the Haitian political system.

1. Likewise, the reestablishment of security, especially in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, must be prioritized by Haitian authorities. Since June, a significant and sudden increase in gang violence has caused the displacement of some 19,000 people from the communes of Cité-Soleil, Croix-des-Bouquets, Delmas and the Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of Martissant. The control that gangs exercise around strategic entry and exit points of the capital has had a detrimental impact on Haiti’s economy and the movement of people and goods. Applying the recommendations of a team of UN police experts deployed from May to July following a request from the late President, the Haitian National Police has sought to improve the effectiveness of its anti-gang operations by adopting a more balanced approach to prevention and repression, relying on increased police presence in problematic areas, and improving its intelligence-gathering mechanisms.

1. Yet, an over-stretched and under resourced force alone cannot stem this worrisome rise in crime. Haiti’s main security institution will not be able to achieve sustainable results unless its capacities are strengthened, and government services are brought back to the impoverished neighborhoods that serve as fertile ground for armed gangs. Therefore, in addition to sustaining its efforts to reform the police with the support of the United Nations and bilateral partners, the Government must implement a more holistic approach to addressing gang violence, within the framework of the national strategy for community violence reduction which was developed with UN support and endorsed on 5 July.

Mr. President,

1. Haitian citizens have unanimously condemned President Moïse’s gruesome death and called for a thorough investigation into his assassination – one which follows due process and the rule of law. For the shroud of impunity which has long enveloped Haiti to begin lifting, and for justice to prevail in this as well as several emblematic cases, judicial actors must be allowed to work independently, in an appeased environment, with reassurance that they will be protected while undertaking the delicate task of identifying and prosecuting the perpetrators.

1. The Haitian judicial system also continues to contend with the protracted challenge of pre-trial detention which affects 82 percent of the country’s prison inmates, among the highest such rates in the world. National authorities must redouble their efforts to urgently address this issue, in close consultation with all judicial stakeholders. Furthermore, it is imperative that the process to review the new penal and criminal procedural codes continue as, once promulgated, they will be critical to combatting pre-trial detention as well as harmonizing Haitian law with regional and international human right standards.

Distinguished members of the Council,

1. The 14 August earthquake has added a new layer of complexity to an already dire humanitarian situation. In the face of the most recent catastrophe to befall the country, the United Nations reiterates its support to the Government and people of Haiti, and salutes the active national leadership and coordination of the post-disaster response and recovery. 

1. Even as relief operations are still ongoing, early recovery and the restoration of livelihoods must be strongly supported in the areas affected by the earthquake. It is a race against time to ensure that children can return to school, that farmers do not miss the next planting season, and that people currently living in spontaneous displacement camps return to their homes as quickly as possible. We must ensure that Haiti does not become a forgotten crisis. I urge all Member States to contribute to the $187.3 million Flash Appeal launched on 25 August to respond to the needs of those affected by the earthquake as well as the $235.6 million 2021-2022 Humanitarian Response Plan, both of which are currently only about one third funded. Moreover, in the long term, the reconstruction process will need the full engagement of the Government of Haiti as well as the international community, to ensure a greener, resilient, and more inclusive recovery.

1. Similarly, while the United Nations and partners have worked closely with the Government of Haiti to ensure it responds effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic, greater cooperation will be required to sustain and scale up testing capabilities as well as to promote public health and social measures. With only some 60,000 vaccines administered to date and less than one per cent of the country’s eligible population inoculated, increasing vaccine uptake in the coming weeks and months will prove vital to protecting Haiti and its most vulnerable populations from COVID-19 and the threat of more transmissible variants.

Mr. President,

1. The situation in which Haiti currently finds itself can only be characterized as bleak. Nevertheless, there exist encouraging signs that only reinforce my conviction that, through urgent, determined and concerted action, Haiti’s citizens can address the deep structural challenges, as well as the governance and development deficits, which feed their country’s instability, insecurity, and ever-growing humanitarian needs. Along with the United Nations, the entire international community must continue to steadfastly stand alongside the Haitian people and their government as they endeavor to forge a path towards stability, security and sustainable development.

Thank you.

…

What I saw in the border patrol images: African American/Haitian shared history

BY GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE OCT. 01, 2021

The Haitian Times

By Garry Pierre-Pierre

Growing up in Elizabeth, NJ,  I and the handful of Haitian kids who lived there would sometimes get into schoolyard spats with our African American classmates. In the heat of the moment, the African Americans kids would call us “Frenchy” because of our surnames and accents. We would shoot back, “I’m not French, I’m Haitian.” 

It would go on like this for a while, with the typical harmless things kids do. Then, we came to realize that these taunts were out of envy and nothing more. “Say something in French,” they would ask. We would say something banal, and we all would laugh. 

When I first saw African Americans, I actually thought they were Haitians. In my innocence, I thought every Black person was Haitian. I remember saying to my mom that I didn’t know there were so many “Haitians” in New York.

At that time, most of the Haitians who had migrated to the U.S were middle class, but we lived in mostly poor Black communities — meaning that language was not our only division. So Haitian parents warned their children not to play or associate with “Ti Americain noir,” Creole for “little Black Americans,” whom they saw as criminals in waiting. That was the mainstream propaganda and trope, and Haitian parents fell for it like other immigrants have for generations before and since. 

I’m glad to say that my mom was not such a parent. Liberal to the core, she welcomed my friends. Derrick Taylor, who passed away recently, was one of my best friends. A funny, irreverent, great guy. Derrick loved lambi, our conch dish, and my mom would oblige him with a heaping plate when he came over. 

What most Haitian parents didn’t understand was that the reason they lived in the poor communities is that a system placed them there, whether or not they had money. It’s called structural and systemic racism. 

After I graduated from Elizabeth High School, I should have taken a gap year before going to college, but of course, such a concept was foreign to me. Instead, I went to Rutgers, then Kean College. I didn’t do much academically, but that year was not all lost. I learned about the Civil Rights Movement and discovered Malcom X and Martin Luther King. I immersed myself in Black American life through books.

I felt buoyed by that history, like I had found my intellectual compass. I settled my choice down to three Historically Black Colleges and Universities down — Howard, North Carolina A&T and Morehouse. One day I ran into Derrick while he was home from school and told him of my plan. 

“Homeboy, you have to come to FAMU,” he said referring to The Florida A&M University. “That’s where I am, you have to.” 

I followed him there and that experience changed my life. Our shared cultures and challenges are more intertwined than either of us had realized. 

A viral view of anti-Blackness

This reality has come to the fore with the latest crisis facing Haitians. We all saw it: U.S. Customs & Border Patrol agents treating Haitians seeking asylum the way that slave catchers of yore chased down African American runaways fleeing plantations. We all watched the agents, high on their horses, use the reins as whips to make sure these Haitian people, these Black people, didn’t come here. 

It took a minute to sink in, even as the images went viral, but soon the Congressional Black Caucus, civil rights leaders and Black journalists pushed back hard. They united around Haitians because they didn’t see us as “Haitians,” but as the lost cousins that were dropped off at an earlier port during that peculiar institution we call chattel slavery. 

It is about time that we Haitians come to the realization that we are Black Americans, just with a different accent. Heck, there are millions of us in Louisiana. All you have to do is watch an LSU game on any given Saturday and you will see Black people with French surnames. 

New Orleans is the only place in America where people don’t wonder about my name and accent. I’m one of them. 

Back at FAMU, I had met some students from Louisiana and one had invited me there and his mom told me about Marie Laveau, the famous Vodou priestess, and other luminaries that came from Haiti. When I ventured into the deep swamp towns and hamlets, I heard a Creole akin to that in Cap Haitien, a different accent.

At FAMU, after the freshman year, few people lived on campus. We lived in apartment buildings where the majority of the dwellers attended the school and these places became de facto dorms. 

We would congregate at each other’ places, watch BET, and talk about the problems facing Blacks in America and how we would solve them when we became professionals. They would pepper me with questions about Haiti and its revolution. 

At that time, the sheen had been wiped off the Haiti of my youth. In the early 1980’s, a wave of Haitian refugees coming by boat was top of the news in South Florida and nationally. I would try my best to explain the reality in Haiti, although back then I didn’t follow Haiti all that much. I reverted to the history for contextual background.

I’m still in touch with a cadre of these classmates to this day and we are on a chat group where we share the latest news of who has passed away and the trials and tribulations of our children. That is how I found out that Derrick had died. 

Joint histories coming to light 

I was one of a handful of Haitian students in the “Yard” as FAMU’s campus was known and was popular partly because I was a reporter at the FAMUAN, the school’s newspaper, eventually becoming its editor in chief. 

These days, things are different. I was invited to speak by the Dean of the School of Journalism, where I was pleasantly surprised to see that Haitians were no longer a small minority of the student body. There is a Haitian Student Association in Tallahassee that includes students who attend FAMU, Florida State and Tallahassee Community College.

I spoke about my time at FAMU and campus life in the early 1980’s. The students

were mostly from South Florida, presumably children of the refugees who were arriving while I was in school. 

They were fully integrated on campus life. They were part of the frat scene and were part of the larger Black family. Instead of being from Louisiana, their parents came from Haiti, and they had embraced the culture. 

During our conversation, I asked them why they felt they started a Haitian club, considering the campus was majority Black and there was a Caribbean student club dating before when I was in school. I was told that while they identified with all of them, there was something special about being Haitian because of the country’s history. They wanted to preserve it and celebrate it.

I flashed a smile because I knew exactly what they meant. It’s time for this generation, who has embraced their African American and Caribbean cousins, moored solidly in their “Haitianity,” to coin a word, to rise. They, more than anybody, understand this moment. It is their moment to show the world where Black unity can take us. 

The time for petty division is over. Haitians, Black Americans, Caribbean Americans and now continental Africans must realize that they are not competitors. We are collaborators facing an ever-rising tide of white nationalism in the world bent on pushing us back and holding us down. 

If we can gain that unity, we can make the Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) coalition into a broader movement for social change, along with like-minded whites who support our cause.  

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 23 septembre 2021

US are sending Haitians back home

NPR, Sunday, September 19, 2021

DEL RIO, Texas — The U.S. flew Haitians camped in a Texas border town back to their homeland Sunday and tried blocking others from crossing the border from Mexico in a massive show of force that signaled the beginning of what could be one of America's swiftest, large-scale expulsions of migrants or refugees in decades.

More than 320 migrants arrived in Port-au-Prince on three flights, and Haiti said six flights were expected Tuesday. In all, U.S. authorities moved to expel many of the more 12,000 migrants camped around a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, after crossing from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.

The U.S. plans to begin seven expulsion flights daily on Wednesday, four to Port-au-Prince and three to Cap-Haitien, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Flights will continue to depart from San Antonio but authorities may add El Paso, the official said.

The only obvious parallel for such an expulsion without an opportunity to seek asylum was in 1992 when the Coast Guard intercepted Haitian refugees at sea, said Yael Schacher, senior U.S. advocate at Refugees International whose doctoral studies focused on the history of U.S. asylum law.

Biden administration to ramp up deportation flights to Haiti, aiming to deter mass migration into Texas

Nick Miroff8:27 a.m. EDT

Homeland Security officials are planning as many as eight flights per day to Haiti, three officials said, while cautioning that plans remained in flux. The administration was preparing to announce the flights Saturday, said two of the officials, who were not authorized to discuss the plan.

Haitian authorities have agreed to accept at least three flights per day, but Biden officials want to maximize deportations to break the momentum of the massive influx into the Del Rio, Tex., camp, one official said.

Thousands of Haitian migrants wait under bridge in South Texas after mass border crossing

Another U.S. official involved in the planning insisted that the flights were not a targeted measure aimed at Haitians, but the application of U.S. immigration laws allowing the government to swiftly return border-crossers who arrive illegally.

“This isn’t about any one country or country of origin,” the official said. “This is about enforcing border restrictions on those who continue to enter the country illegally and put their lives and the lives of the federal workforce at risk.”

The Biden administration continues to use a pandemic enforcement measure known as Title 42 to rapidly “expel” border crossers to Mexico or their home countries. Officials said some of the flights to Haiti would probably be expulsion flights relying on the public health authority of the Title 42 provision.

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from using Title 42 to expel migrant families but stayed the order for 14 days. The Biden administration appealed the ruling Friday.

The administration’s preparations to ramp up deportation flights to Haiti was first reported Friday by the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.

By announcing its intent to deport the Haitians before launching the flights, Biden officials also appeared to be hoping some in the camp would abandon their attempt to enter the United States and return to Mexico. Migrants arriving to the camp have been given numbered tickets by the Border Patrol as they await a turn to be formally taken into U.S. custody, the first step in starting the process of requesting U.S. asylum or some other form of protection from deportation.

Some Haitians seeking to avoid deportation could abandon the Del Rio camp and attempt to remain in the United States illegally, or return to Mexico, two U.S. officials acknowledged.

Many of the migrants crowded under the highway bridge are part of a larger wave of Haitian migrants that arrived in Brazil, Chile and other South American nations following their country’s devastating earthquake in 2010.

A lament for Haiti: ‘It is as if we are cursed’

Immigrant advocates have been calling on Biden to suspend all deportation flights to Haiti following the assassination of the country’s president in July and a 7.2 quake last month that killed at least 2,000. The Biden administration has extended a form of provisional residency known as temporary protected status to eligible Haitians who arrived in the United States before May, and it had curbed deportation flights at the behest of immigrant advocacy organizations.

The new deportation flight plan is likely to outrage those groups, but it points to the Biden administration’s hardening view of immigration enforcement after months of surging migration levels.

Last month, U.S. authorities took more than 208,000 into custody along the southern border, the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures show, as illegal crossings reach their highest levels in more than two decades.

The Comprehensive Development Plan is an Innovative Proposal that Addresses the Structural Causes of Migration, With a Focus on Growth, Equality and Environmental Sustainability

ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, presented the fourth draft of this initiative today in Guatemala, at a ceremony led by that country’s President, Alejandro Giammattei.

15 JANUARY 2020|PRESS RELEASE

CEPAL - MEXICO

The Comprehensive Development Plan for El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and south and southeast Mexico is an innovative proposal that seeks to create a space for sustainable development by stimulating economic growth, promoting universal access to social rights, fostering resilience to climate change, and guaranteeing rights throughout the entire migratory cycle, Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), sustained today.

In a ceremony held in Guatemala, which was led by President Alejandro Giammattei, the senior United Nations official presented the fourth draft of the Plan. This initiative has been adhered to by the four countries, and it will be enriched further in a joint manner with a view to achieving a definitive design, which will be determined by the countries involved with support from ECLAC and the United Nations System.

The ceremony was attended by Foreign Ministers Pedro Brolo, of Guatemala; Alejandra Hill, of El Salvador; and Marcelo Ebrard, of Mexico. Honduras was represented by Ambassador Mario Alberto Fortín.

During her presentation, Alicia Bárcena recalled that the Comprehensive Development Plan seeks to change the migration narrative, placing the dignity of migrants and human rights at the center with a human security approach and adopting a focus on the full migratory cycle: origin, transit, destination and return.

She added that the proposal explores regional synergies and integration-based approaches, it surveys and expands what States already do well with their resources, and it strengthens public capacities.

ECLAC’s Executive Secretary emphasized that the initiative contemplates 22 thematic programs and 108 projects, ready to be implemented, which entail an investment of $25 billion dollars over 5 years.

The proposal is organized around four thematic pillars: economic development, social well-being, environmental sustainability, and comprehensive management of the migratory cycle.

ECLAC’s most senior representative recalled that El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and the 9 states in south-southeast Mexico make up a market of 60 million people, with access to both oceans and a privileged geographical situation, great natural biodiversity and cultural diversity, with a vocation for integration, a young population, and production capacities waiting to be developed.

Finally, she reiterated her invitation for officials to participate in a donors’ conference for the Comprehensive Development Plan, which will take place during the first week of March in Mexico City.

The Comprehensive Development Plan stems from the mandate that ECLAC was given on December 1, 2018 by the Presidents of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, to draft a plan with the aim of formulating a diagnosis and presenting recommendations to advance toward a new development pattern and give rise to a new vision regarding the complexity of migratory processes.

This strategic document is the result of collaboration between 16 United Nations agencies, funds and programs that operate in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In its assessment, the Plan indicates that the structural motives and causes of migration that these countries currently endure are: insufficient economic growth with poverty and inequality, where the 10% with the greatest income obtains as much as 70 times more than the poorest 10%; high demographic growth in cities and great lags in rural areas; natural phenomena such as drought and flooding; violence and insecurity in places of origin; and the great salary gap that exists with the United States, which is the country that has become the destination for the majority of migrants.

Some of the 30 specific recommendations contained in the Comprehensive Development Plan include progressive taxation, to prioritize public investment and eliminate tax privileges, as well as the strengthening of tax administration; raising total investment to a target of 25% of GDP; leveraging remittances so they can act as drivers of productive inclusion and local development; and greater integration and trade facilitation, with an emphasis on energy, logistics, infrastructure and regional digitalization.

How Hope, Fear and Misinformation Led Thousands of Haitians to the U.S. Border

Some left to find work. Others to escape violence or racial discrimination in other countries. But many believe ‘there is nothing to go back to.’

Sept. 17, 2021

Migrants walked across the Rio Grande carrying food and other supplies to a makeshift camp in Del Rio, Texas.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times

DEL RIO, Texas — They have arrived this week by the thousands, Haitians who had heard of an easy way into the United States. In what appeared to be an endless procession across the shallow waters of the Rio Grande, they carried mattresses, fruit, diapers and blankets, provisions to tide them over while they awaited their turn to plead for entry into America.

For so many, it had been a journey years in the making.

“A friend of mine told me to cross here. I heard it was easier,” said Mackenson, a 25-year-old Haitian who spoke on the condition that his last name not be published. He and his pregnant wife had traveled from Tapachula, Mexico, near the country’s border with Guatemala, where they had been living after earlier stops over the last three years in Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Panama. “It took us two months to get here on foot and by bus.”

This week, the couple joined an estimated 14,000 other migrants who have converged upon the border community of Del Rio, a surge that has overwhelmed local officials and the authorities and comes amid a staggering spike in border crossings this year. On Friday morning, as the summer sun beat down, the couple found a moment of solace in the shade of the Del Rio International Bridge, which had quickly become a very crowded staging area, with migrants jostling for a patch of dirt to sit and rest.

By Friday evening, federal authorities had closed the entrance to the bridge and were routing traffic 57 miles away to Eagle Pass, Texas, saying it was necessary to “respond to urgent safety and security needs presented” by the influx and would “protect national interests.”

Officials estimated that more than 14,000 migrants have converged on Del Rio, Texas — a figure that’s nearly half the population of the small border city.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times

The rise in Haitian migration began in the months after President Biden took office and quickly began reversing former President Donald J. Trump’s strictest immigration policies, which was interpreted by many as a sign that the United States would be more welcoming to migrants. In May, the administration extended temporary protected status for the 150,000 Haitians already living in the country. But tens of thousands have attempted to cross into the United States since then despite not qualifying for the program.

“False information, misinformation and misunderstanding might have created a false sense of hope,” said Guerline M. Jozef, the executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an organization that works with migrants.

Mr. Biden’s term has coincided with a sharp deterioration in the political and economic stability of Haiti, leaving parts of its capital under the control of gangs and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes. The assassination of Haiti’s president and a magnitude 7.2 earthquake this summer have only added to the pressures causing people to leave the country. Shortly after the assassination, hundreds of Haitians flocked to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, many carrying packed suitcases and small children, after false rumors spread on social media that the Biden administration was handing out humanitarian visas to Haitians in need.

Most of the Haitians in Mexico — a country that has intercepted nearly 4,000 this year — were not coming directly from Haiti, but from South America, where, like Mackenson, they had already been living and working, according to a top official in the Mexican foreign ministry. The number of Haitians heading northward across the border that separates Colombia and Panama — often by traversing the treacherous jungle known as the Darién Gap — has also surged in recent years, increasing from just 420 in 2018 to more than 42,300 through August of this year, according to the Panamanian government.

“We are dealing with this really new type of migration which are these Haitians coming from mainly Brazil and Chile,” said Roberto Velasco, the chief officer for North America at Mexico’s foreign ministry. “They are mainly looking for jobs, they come from third countries so repatriation is difficult.”

Following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti, tens of thousands of Haitians headed southward to Chile and Brazil in search of jobs in two of South America’s richest countries. To get there, many undertook an arduous overland journey across the continent through the Amazon and the Andes.

Migrants gathered under the Del Rio International Bridge on Thursday evening. Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times

Many were offered humanitarian visas in both nations, which needed low-wage workers, but that welcoming stance withered as economic instability in the region rose in tandem with a growing backlash toward immigrants.

Haitian mass migration to Brazil, South America’s largest nation, began increasing in 2011, reaching a peak of nearly 17,000 in 2018.

But as the pandemic has battered the Brazilian and other South American economies, work opportunities have proved increasingly scarce: Only a net of about 500 Haitians gained formal jobs in Brazil in the first five months of this year, compared with around 2,000 in the same period in 2019, according to Brazil’s latest migration statistics.

In Chile, the exodus of Haitians has also been driven by the government’s increasingly restrictive immigration policy. President Sebastián Piñera has tightened border controls and visa rules and increased deportations of undocumented migrants after being overwhelmed by the influx of Venezuelans and Haitians fleeing economic collapse and violence in their countries.

Many Haitians have also suffered from discrimination in Chile, a nation that a decade ago had no significant Black population. “Anti-Black racism is one of the main driving forces of people leaving Chile in search of protection,” Ms. Jozef said.

The number of visas issued to Haitians in Chile collapsed to just 3,000 so far this year from the peak of 126,000 in 2018, according to the country’s migration statistics. In fact, more Haitians have left than arrived in Chile this year, dramatically reversing a prepandemic trend.

“The movement of Haitians from Chile and other South American countries shows that migration is not just a simple journey of you move once and then you’re done,” said Cris Ramón, an immigration consultant based in Washington, D.C. “People are making a far more complex journey to the United States, it isn’t just that there’s an earthquake in Haiti so people are going to migrate.”

Until recently, Haitians were gathering by the thousands in Reynosa and Matamoros, the Mexican cities on the other side of McAllen and Brownsville, in the Rio Grande Valley, after hearing that families with children were not being turned back by the Border Patrol after crossing the Rio Grande. Some were allowed into the country; others were returned to Mexico, only exacerbating the confusion.

“The movement is often based on rumors,” said Ms. Jozef. “Last week, if you’d asked me, I’d say they were in Reynosa and Matamoros. This week it’s Del Rio. These people are extremely desperate. And they know that there is nothing to go back to in Haiti.”

Crowds in Del Rio, Texas, have created a new humanitarian challenge.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times

Though Haitians still represent a small percentage of border crossers — about 4 percent of the migrants encountered by border agents in August — their numbers have ballooned in recent months. Nearly 28,000 Haitians have been intercepted by the Border Patrol along the U.S.-Mexico border in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, compared with 4,395 in 2020 and 2,046 in 2019.

The United States is home to about one million Haitians, with the largest numbers concentrated in Miami, Boston and New York. But Haitian communities have blossomed in Maryland, Ohio, North Carolina and California.

This week, the United States resumed deportation flights to Haiti under Title 42, an emergency public health order that has empowered the government to seal the border and turn away migrants during the pandemic. Immigration and Customs Enforcement repatriated about 90 Haitians, including families, on Wednesday.

The move drew sharp rebuke from immigrant advocates and lawmakers who said the administration should be offering Haitians legal protection and the opportunity to apply for asylum rather than repatriating them to their troubled home country just a month after the earthquake.

“It is cruel and wrong to return anyone to Haiti now,” said Steve Forester, immigration policy coordinator at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

But returning Haitians to their home country is “essential to prevent these kinds of situations from developing,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors curbing immigration. “If any Haitian who makes it to the U.S. border is home free, then more people are going to do it. If you lived in Brazil or Chile for years, one of your kids was born here, you are ineligible for asylum. You were firmly resettled in another country.”

On Friday, at the spillway north of the Del Rio International Bridge, a two-lane thoroughfare that connects the small bicultural city with Mexico, the migrants in the growing crowd became restless as they waited to be processed by border agents. They walked about the camp, which was filling up with hundreds of new arrivals on Friday, and crossed the Rio Grande into Ciudad Acuña, where they bought as much hot food and cold drinks as they could carry.

Near the bridge, enterprising migrants set up shop, shouting out their wares and prices. It felt like an open-air market, and by midafternoon, the piles of trash were strewn about the dirt ground. As the sun intensified, so did the dust, which left a thin layer on clothes, cellphones and bodies.

The mood, while mostly serious, was also at times jovial. As border agents looked on, migrants chatted with each other, joked and took occasional refreshing swims in the calm waters of the river.

Not too far from the camp, Ang Ladeson Francillon, 29, washed his clothes outside a shelter, where he had been taken after being processed by border agents. He had left Haiti only a month ago with his wife and little girl, setting out on an odyssey that took them across several countries, through jungles, across deep rivers and on long, exhausting treks by foot.

He reached Del Rio four days earlier, and was surprised to find thousands of other Haitians.

For the first time in a long time, at the shelter with so many others who dreamed the same dreams, Mr. Francillon felt optimistic about his family’s future. He was expecting to get on a California-bound plane, possibly as early as this weekend, where he would meet up with a sister.

“We hope to find a new start there,” he said. “We all want the same thing, a better life.”

James Dobbins and Edgar Sandoval reported from Del Rio, Natalie Kitroeffand Anatoly Kurmanaev from Mexico City and Miriam Jordan from Los Angeles. Oscar Lopez contributed research.

Détails

Catégorie : What's up Little Haiti

Création : 17 septembre 2021

 Haiti Prime Minister Invited to Testify at Assassination Hearing

Caribbean National weekly.com

Haiti’s chief public prosecutor invited Prime Minister Ariel Henry to meet with him in the coming days as part of an ongoing investigation into the slaying of President Jovenel Moïse.

The chief prosecutor Bedford Claude, noted that Henry spoke with one of the main suspects in the case just hours after the killing.

The invitation noted that Henry had multiple phone calls with fugitive Joseph Felix Badio, who once worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and authorities say had a key role leading up to the July 7 killing of the president at his private home.

TPS Extended for Haitians Until December 2022

 CARIBBEAN NATIONAL WEEKLY.COM

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a notice extending Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries from Haiti and some other countries until December 31, 2022.

In a recent notice the DHS said that the other countries are El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan.

The automatic extension is intended to ensure continued compliance with preliminary injunction orders that have been entered in the various cases challenging the Trump Administration’s attempted termination of TPS for these countries.

Beneficiaries from the list of countries in question also are entitled to an automatic extension of their other TPS-related documentation, including  – I-94 Arrival/Departure Records and I-797 Notices of Action if they applied to re-register during one of the previous DHS-announced registration periods. The DHS says that should litigation be concluded prior to December 31, 2022, with the determination that TPS should be terminated prior to that date, there will be at least a 120-day notice or winddown period.

Based on a separate agreement, TPS beneficiaries from El Salvador will be entitled to a 365-day winddown period.

The department says that although those from Haiti are entitled to this new automatic extension, they also are eligible to apply for TPS under the new 18-month TPS designation for Haiti effective August 3, 2021, through February 3, 2023.

Eligible Haitians have been encouraged to apply for the new designation as soon as possible to ensure they do not have any gaps in authorization.

MAESTRO ISNARD DOUBY 1949-2021

AyitiBiyografi

New York will celebrate the life of the legendary musician Isnard Douby on Wednesday September 15th from 6PM to 11PM at Bentley’s in Brooklyn 

 Get your mask ready because you are going to need it! October 22nd @champ_production_ presents @djstakz @t_ansyto @djmanny_mix and @roodyroodboyhaiti for the hottest Halloween party in West Palm Beach! SAVE THE DATE!

CARPHA Urges Caribbean Countries to get Population to Quit Smoking

The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) has said that tobacco use remains a public-health crisis in the region and urged regional countries to make every effort to strengthen multi-sectoral policies and community-based initiatives to discourage the drug’s use.

Dr. Joy St. John, executive director of the Trinidad-based agency, said, “It is a preventable cause of illness and death, yet it contributes to the development of non-communicable diseases including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, respiratory diseases and cancer. These diseases are the greatest contributors to illness and deaths in the CARICOM region.”

CARPHA said that the prevalence of current tobacco smoking ranges from 13.3 percent in Barbados to 23 percent in Guyana for adult males, and from 7.7 percent in Barbados to 12.6 percent in Guyana for adult women. In Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, adolescents use more e-cigarettes than conventional cigarettes.

It was also said that the non-Latin Caribbean has the second-highest prevalence of tobacco use among 13-15-year-olds.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the benefits of quitting tobacco are almost immediate, including a drop-in heart rate and blood pressure within 20 minutes of quitting as well as the carbon monoxide level in the blood dropping to normal.

CARPHA said that quitting smoking is one of the most important steps a person can take to improve his or her health, and that people who quit smoking after having a heart attack can reduce their chances of having another heart attack by 50 per cent.

Mu Variant of COVID-19 Detected in Jamaica

Health and Wellness Minister, Dr. Christopher Tufton, says the Mu strain of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) will be manageable once the established public health protocols are followed.

Tufton urged members of the public not to panic, as new strains of the virus will enter Jamaica due to people traveling to the island from other parts of the globe.

“This new strain is not going to lead to more people dying or getting ill. We are still studying it, and while we have an obligation to announce, we are not announcing for you to panic…it is for you to be aware; it is not a failure of the system or the process,” he told reporters.

He said what is required is continuous vaccination, social distancing, and regular hand washing and sanitization as the observance of the health protocols will help to “build our capacity to resist the virus as we restore some form semblance of normality”.

Death toll from massive Haiti earthquake soars

WASHINGTON POST - Haiti’s public works ministry dispatched 55 rescue teams, composed of military and civil protection personnel, for search-and-rescue efforts, but it was not enough. In some communities, residents reported a lack of relief workers and took it upon themselves to act.

“It’s the people from the neighborhood using their own hands who have been digging and rescuing anyone they can save,” said Jean-David Cassis, a 31-year-old farmer in the city of Torbeck on the southwestern coast.

He and a group of neighbors aided a 21-year-old woman whose foot they could see protruding from a collapsed house. They were able to get her out alive. But they were unable to save a 47-year-old mother who was found dead, holding her small son.

“Houses collapsed everywhere,” Cassis said. “It's a very grave situation. . . . People are still lying where they died.”

As Haitians used tools to dig through collapsed homes and buildings, USAID prepared to deploy a 65-member search-and-rescue team on Sunday from Fairfax County, Va. The team carried four dogs and 26 tons of specialized tools and equipment, including hydraulic concrete-breaking equipment, saws, torches, drills and advanced medical equipment. Five additional members of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department will provide technical support to the U.N. Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team to help with emergency management and coordination efforts, USAID said in a statement. The U.S. Coast Guard was also transporting seriously injured victims from hard-hit areas in the south and west to Port-au-Prince.

Bocchit Edmond, the Haitian ambassador to the United States, said he had also requested a search-and-rescue team from Miami-Dade County in Florida.

“We want [U.S. first responders] to help,” he said. “We have news that in some parts of the country, there are probably people under rubble, and we want to give them a chance.”

In a brief interview with The Washington Post, Prime Minister Ariel Henry defended the response, saying the government had indeed requested foreign assistance for search-and-rescue operations. But he said fuller assessments needed to be done before the government asked for broader international aid, and he “discouraged” charity groups from coming to Haiti and distributing supplies themselves.

“We do not say ‘help’ without knowing what we want,” he said. “We don’t just go and ask for help.”

After touring the hardest-hit areas, he told reporters he had witnessed “enormous devastation” and had been “profoundly moved” by the efforts of locals to rescue people on their own.

The earthquake that struck Haiti at 8:29 a.m. Saturday was stronger than the one that killed more than 220,000 people in 2010, but it was centered farther from the capital. Officials and witnesses said the southern and western areas of the country sustained devastating damage.

Haiti's civil protection office on Sunday evening reported at least 1,297 deaths. More than 5,700 people have been injured and more than 27,000 homes damaged or destroyed. Schools, churches and at least one hospital have also been damaged or destroyed, the U.N. office said. The death toll is expected to rise.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Haiti warned that relief operations were confronting “restrictions” due to the presence of violent gangs that have been “hindering the capacity of humanitarian actors to operate normally and reach affected populations.” An official said the agency hoped a freshly struck deal for a one-week cease-fire with the gangs would open a humanitarian corridor.

7.2-magnitude earthquake devastates Haiti

In a country already suffering a food crisis, the earthquake hit Haiti’s breadbasket as well as the very region that was devastated by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

Paul Domerçant, a 38-year-old ambulance driver for the Immaculate Conception Hospital in downtown Les Cayes, described a scene similar to that of Port-au-Prince's Hopital de l'Universite d’Etat d’Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

“Injured victims flooded the emergency room,” Domerçant said. “We have no space, no beds. We put patients outside, in the parking lot, under trees, and it hasn't stopped.”

Domerçant said he witnessed residents pulling bodies out of the debris of collapsed structures.

“There was a burial at a church when the earthquake hit,” he said. “The whole building came down. Some were rescued and brought to the hospital, but there are many more trapped inside.

“Hospitals are at full capacity, both state and private in Les Cayes. It was, and continues to be, a triage nightmare. We were not well-equipped even before the earthquake.”

Haiti’s long, terrible history of earthquakes and disaster

Claude Harry Milord, the mayor of Jeremie, a coastal town of 31,000, said 400 families whose homes were destroyed were sleeping on the streets. He said Jeremie and communities on its outskirts were running out of water and medicine. He said search-and-rescue teams from the Haitian police and the Haitian health department were being joined by volunteers. But there still had been no contact with more remote communities. “People there are on their own,” Milord said.

He said the Hospital of Saint Antoine de Jeremie was in urgent need of oxygen equipment, syringes and masks. The spread of the coronavirus and its delta variant in a disaster situation was a serious concern.

Even before the quake, Haiti was struggling with rising gang violence, political instability — its president was assassinated last month — and a brutal economic crisis that has sent refugees fleeing parts of the capital and needing regular distribution of U.N. food aid. Distribution to the southern parts of the country had been hampered in recent months by the violent gangs that control the Martissant neighborhood of the capital; any relief effort by land to quake-devastated areas now will need to traverse that same dangerous route.

In one positive sign, the gangs controlling Martissant have offered a pledge for a one-week cease-fire to allow convoys to pass through safely, according to Christian Cricboom, Haiti director for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Cricboom said emergency teams and medical supplies were already being flown into the hardest-hit areas by helicopter. He said a “test convoy” over land with assessment personnel would be departing on Sunday, in the hopes that the gangs would honor their pledge.

Exactly what aid would be sent in the coming days remained to be determined. U.N. and foreign governments were waiting for specific requests from the Haitian government. Cricboom said foreign ambassadors would be holding a crisis planning meeting on Monday to coordinate efforts.

Cricboom said he had flown over the devastated south on Sunday. He called the scene “quite intense . . . some buildings are damaged and others destroyed.” But he said that many structures were still standing and that the level of destruction did not appear to be as catastrophic as in the 2010 quake — in part because that one struck closer to densely populated Port-au-Prince, and the southern regions hit now are more rural. “The death toll will increase, but we are not talking about hundreds of thousands of lives,” he said.

As foreign charities, nongovernmental organizations and volunteer groups dispatched people, supplies and equipment to Haiti, authorities reiterated their insistence that all aid be channeled and cleared through them. Officials said the government wants to avoid a repeat of massive amounts spent — and misspent — in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

“All aid must be coordinated through the Civil Protection to prevent the errors of 2010,” Henry, the prime minister, told reporters in Port-au-Prince.

Widlore Merancourt contributed to this report from Port-au-Prince. Faiola reported from Miami.