Young Haitian earthquake victim still struggles
By Evens Sanon and Michael
Weissenstein
CANAAN, Haiti (AP) — Just
before 5 pm, Marie-Mislen Thomas’
house fell on top of her
three children.
In the first nightmarish
hour after a massive earthquake
devastated Haiti on Jan.
12, 2010, the Thomases were
able to pull their sons Chilo
and Jameson from the rubble.
It took them hours more
to find the then two-year-old
Rose-Berline.
Her foot was crushed but
she survived with help from
a Cuban doctor. A French
charity moved the Thomases
to Canaan, a swiftly growing
shantytown on empty land two
hours from their destroyed
home in the capital. Another
non-governmental organization
gave Rose-Berline a prosthetic
lower leg and crutches.
Then the Thomases and
hundreds of thousands more
Haitian earthquake survivors
were left on their own.
On the tenth anniversary of
the Haitian quake, the Thomases
live in a rotting tworoom
shack that floods when
it rains in Canaan, which has
become the largest slum in the
Caribbean. Home to more than
300,000 people, Canaan has no
running water, electricity or
other public services despite
repeated promises that NGOs,
foreign governments and Haitian
officials would help.
Rose-Berline has outgrown
her prosthesis and a pair of
crutches provided by foreign
aid workers. At 12, she runs the
Thomas household while her
mother works selling housewares
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in the street. The bone
has grown out of her stump,
making a new prosthesis
impossible to fit, and the Thomases
don’t have the money to
pay for an operation.
For observers, the fate of
earthquake victims like Rose-
Berline shows outside actors’
inability to follow through or
make lasting positive change
with the billions spent in Haiti
after the earthquake, which
killed hundreds of thousands
and left more than a million
homeless. The final death toll
remains debated.
“The international community
was very efficient during
three or four months to provide
water, shelter in the form
of tents and provisional shelters,
provide medicine, food,
etc.,” said Leslie Voltaire, a Haitian
urban planner who has
worked to improve conditions
in Canaan.
Asked about the long-term
response, he offered a different
evaluation.
“It has been a disaster,” he
said. “All the displaced people
are found in Canaan or other
slums area. They don’t have
real shelter. They have been
building by themselves and
without proper guidance by the
state. If there is another earthquake
it will crumble again.”
Voltaire worked for the
Haitian government housing
agency after the quake and said
he proposed a series of measures
to improve conditions in
Canaan, including road construction
and the building of
town centers with public services
that would reduce inhabitants’
dependence on long commutes
to Port-au-Prince.
He said none of Haiti’s
recent administrations had
taken action.
A housing agency spokesman
told The Associated Press that
he could not comment, and
Haitian government representatives,
including a spokesman
for President Jovenel Moise,
did not respond to requests for
comment.
As the tenth anniversary of
the earthquake approached,
many NGOs said they were
deeply concerned about the
conditions for quake survivors
and the Haitian population
overall.
In this Jan. 7, 2020 photo, boys play soccer in front of a
restaurant in Canaan, a district in Croix des Bouquets, Haiti
created for people who lost their homes in the earthquake
10 years ago. The earthquake killed hundreds of thousands
and left more than a million homeless, while the fi nal death
toll remains debated. Associated Press / Dieu Nalio Chery
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