Six months after a violent earthquake left a trail of destruction and misery in their country, Haitians are growing impatient at the slow trickle of aid and the crawling pace of reconstruction.
“There are no prospects, no means to rebuild. The international community promised us money, but will it ever come?” asked a baffled Franck Paul, a former mayor of Port-au-Prince.
In the capital’s streets and under tents that still house hundreds of thousands of Haitians left homeless by the disaster, frustration is building.
“When we were asked to come to this camp, we were promised houses. Where are they?” Jean-Auguste Petit-Frere asked as he pointed to a model of a home set up on the site by a Jamaican firm and set to be valued at US$15,000 a piece.
According to the UN office in Haiti, nearly 4,000 homes of 18m² each have been built in a project that anticipates building 10,000 houses.
The UN humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, Nigel Fischer, acknowledged there were “many challenges” in putting Haiti back on its feet and coordinating aid, including making sure the affected population has access to essential care.
He also warned that 130 tent cities have been identified as at risk from the hurricane season in a country that was already the poorest in the Western hemisphere even before the quake.
The French Red Cross, which has promised to build 30,000 transitional homes in collaboration with the US Red Cross, has just begun construction of 500 in a village east of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
However, the figures pale in comparison to the 1.5 million people left homeless by the Jan. 12 quake that measured magnitude 7.0 and killed at least 250,000 people.
Among those still living in squalid temporary plastic tents under sweltering temperatures are 500,000 children at risk of crime, exploitation and abuse.
They often lack decent sanitation and proper protection against an imminent risk of hurricanes.
“Children in Haiti are among those having the hardest time recovering from the earthquake,” Save the Children’s director of emergencies Gareth Owen said in a statement. “Many are still trying to cope with the grief of losing loved ones, their homes, their toys — everything that gave them their sense of identity.”
“It’s hard for an adult to cope, let alone a child,” Owen said.
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