HORROR OF HAITI: HOMELESS SURVIVORS We’ve nothing left, my girl doesn’t even have clothes
STANDING amid the wreckage of her home, shell-shocked Jolita Meridor clings to her two children as she takes in the devastation of Hurricane Matthew.
The 21-year-old and Selinda, three, and Serencia, seven months, were left with nothing when the storm hit Haiti.
They escaped certain death after being evacuated to a nearby school just hours earlier, leaving their house flattened and their belongings buried under rubble or washed out to sea.
Fighting back tears, Jolita said: “When we walked back into the village after the hurricane, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Me and my husband just stood in the street and cried with our daughters in our arms. We have nothing at all left apart from the clothes we are wearing.
“Look at us. I am dirty and my children are dirty. It is like a desert here now. We have no clean water and not even any spare clothes.
“My daughter is naked and covered in dust and dirt because I have nothing to clothe her in. I feel so sad but what can I do? I really don’t know.”
When we visited the tiny fishing village of Port Salut on the island’s south-west coast, we found a community struggling to cope.
Jolita, husband Lionell, 22, and the children have slept rough since the hurricane hit at around 1am last Tuesday.
Hungry
They have no clean water to drink and are being forced to wash themselves and their clothes in a nearby river, which is contaminated by filth.
Their previously picturesque village had hoped to draw in tourists with its spectacular sea views. Now, it resembles the set of a disaster film. The ground is no longer visible and it is impossible to walk around without treading on the scattered remains of the villagers’ shattered lives – everything from children’s toys to mattresses and wardrobes lying where the storm hurled them, among rubbish washed in by the sea.
“We are alive but life is very hard,” said Jolita, who sold rice at a local market. “We are all exhausted and hungry. For now, I can see no way forward for us. Our only meals come when Lionell is able to catch a fish but that is so hard as his boat and all his fishing equipment were taken away by the sea during the hurricane.
“He keeps going into the water on foot to catch what he can but many times there are no fish. We’re not eating much. I don’t know what we are going to do – we have nothing left. We are surviving day to day.”
Jolita’s neighbour Roseline, 33, has five children aged between seven and 18 - and is six months pregnant.
Her husband Joel, 46, left their village four days before the hurricane to visit his mother in Jeremie, 77 miles away. When the hurricane’s route and full force became clear, he stayed to protect his mum.
But Roseline has not heard from him since and now fears the worst.
She said: “I pray to God he is alive but I just don’t know and I fear for the health of my unborn baby. I can’t go to the hospital because I can’t physically get there. My belly has been hurting and I can’t check if everything is OK.”
Speaking of the moment she realised she had to get herself and her children out of Port Salut to save their lives,