Haitians returning to a homeland that is far from welcoming
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Deported from the United States, Pierre Charles landed a week ago in Port-au-Prince, a capital more dangerous and dystopian than the one heíd left four years before. Unable to reach his family, he left the airport alone, on foot.
Charles was unsure how to make his way to the Carrefour neighborhood through a city shrouded in smoke and dust, often tolling with gunfire from gangs and police. On the airport road, the 39-year-old laborer tried unsuccessfully to flag down packed buses. He asked motorcycle drivers to take him but was told again and again that the trip was too risky.
Finally, someone agreed to take him as far as a bus stop.
ìI know there are barricades and shootings,î Charles said as he took off into the unknown, ìbut I have nowhere else to go.î
At least 2,853 Haitians deported from Texas have landed here in the last week with $15$100 in cash handouts and a ìgood luck out thereî from migration officials — many setting
in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Sept. 14. One of the most powerful groups is the G9 coalition of gangs led by Jimmy Cherizier, alias “Barbecue,” a former policeman turned gangster. His gang coalition controls the empty streets around the judiciary and legislative buildings, and all streets east to the coast.
foot in the country for the first time in years, even decades.
More than a city, Port-auPrince it is an archipelago of gang-controlled islands in a sea of despair. Some neighborhoods are abandoned. Others are barricaded behind fires, destroyed
cars and piles of garbage, occupied by heavily armed men. On Saturday, a local newspaper reported 10 kidnappings in the previous 24 hours including a journalist, a singerís mother and a couple driving with their toddler, who was left behind in the car.
Even before the assassination of President Jovenel Moise a in July, the government was weak — the Palace of Justice inactive, congress disbanded by Moise and the legislative building pocked by bullets. Now, although there is a prime minister, it is absent.
Most of the population of Port-au-Prince has no access to basic public services, no drinking water, electricity or garbage collection. The deportees join thousands of fellow Haitians who have been displaced from their homes, pushed out by violence to take up residence in crowded schools, churches, sports centers and makeshift camps among ruins. Many of these people are out of reach even for humanitarian organizations.
Of the more than 18,000 people the United Nations counts among those displaced in Port-au-Prince since gang violence began to spike in May, the International Organization for Migration only has access “to about 5,000, maybe 7,000,î said Giuseppe Loprete, head of the IOM mission here. ìWe are negotiating access to the rest.î
This is the Port-au-Prince that awaits the deportees.