At least a dozen killed in northern Haiti as heavy rains flood homes
At least a dozen people are dead in northern Haiti, where heavy rains have triggered deadly landslides and washed out thousands of homes.
Most of the deaths occurred in Cap-Haïtien, where heavy downpours on Thursday destroyed a home in the southern part of the city, Barrière Bouteille. The house then took out two other homes below it.
“Initial assessments show 2,225 houses flooded and 15 houses damaged,” Haiti’s Civil Protection office said in its latest situation report.
The agency said heavy and moderate rains over the last four weeks have affected several regions of the country but the second largest city, Cap-Haïtien, has been hard it. Since gangs began launching coordinated attacks against key government infrastructure on Feb. 29 in the capital in hopes of bringing down the government, Cap-Haïtien has increasingly become a place of refuge for those trying to escape the violence or leave the country through its Hugo Chavez International Airport. The migration, however, is creating pressure on an already crowded city.
A survey of the disaster shows that homes have been damaged or flooded and people’s livelihoods in rural communities have been severely affected. There have been “significant losses in live
stock,” many of them washed away by the flooded Haut-Cap river in the north, the agency said. Farms have also been devastated in Cerca la Source in Central Haiti, and other damages have been reported elsewhere around the country.
The Office of Civil Protection said regional departments
of the Grand’Anse, Nippes, South, Southeast, West and Center have been the most affected by the rains. Last week two women and a child were among those killed when heavy rains hit the northwest between April 26 and 28, causing flooding and landslides.
The latest disaster, at the start of Haiti’s rainy season, couldn’t have come at a worse time. More than two months into an armed insurgency by warring gangs in Port-au-Prince,
Haiti continues to remain cut off from much of the world and faces a humanitarian catastrophe amid the ongoing political turmoil and gang violence.
The armed attacks, the United Nations said, are fueling the increased displacement of Haitians in the capital — now more than 90,000 —and a resurgence of cholera. The World Health Organization reports that there have been 82,875 suspected cases since the waterborne disease saw a resurgence
in October 20222.
Despite the dire humanitarian situation, which also includes nearly more than half of the population struggling to feed itself and over 1 million facing famine, the U.N. has struggled to raise $674 million for the response. During its most recent report to the U.N. Security Council on the crisis in Haiti, U.N. officials said barely 8% of the money requested had been raised.
Now the rains have added to the toll.
The Office of Civil Protection says there has been damage to infrastructure in the north, including the Marcellus bridge in the center of Cap-Haïtien. Though the heavy rains are a problem, clogged sewers and trash piles have also played a role in flooding homes and streets.
In the Artibonite region, between Cap-Haïtien and Port-au-Prince, several houses also flooded on Wednesday in Saint Michel-de-l’Attalaye. The waters reached up to 15
information. Meanwhile, Miami Dade College Executive Vice President and Provost Malou Harrison encouraged more opportunities for universities and students to learn about the agency’s work.
Though the focus was mainly about the illegal flow of arms, Salisbury took advantage of the gathering to highlight other law enforcement work his agents are engaged in.
While HSI does not handle civil immigration matters, detention, or enforcement — a point the agency emphasizes because immigrant victims and witnesses can fear coming forward with tips because of their immigration status — it does investigate human trafficking and smuggling.
Among the cases highlighted: that of Daniel Pye, a former Christian missionary who ran an orphanage in the port city of Jacmel who was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for child sex tourism. The feds are also seeking cooperation on the developing case of Michael Karl Geilenfeld, the 71year-old inches in some places, the agency said.
In the southeast in Marigot, flooding damaged homes in the area of Peredo, located in Savanne du Bois. The municipal committee of Cerca la Source also documented at least 10 flooded houses while seven houses were damaged.
Jacqueline Charles: 305-376-2616, @jacquiecharles
former operator of St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in Port-au-Prince, who has been accused by former residents of the home of sexually abusing them. Last month, Geilenfeld pleaded not guilty in a U.S. court.
Other participants at Froiday’s forum included Vanessa Joseph, City of North Miami clerk and Catholic Legal Services supervising attorney; Mario Chouloute, Consul General of Haiti; Stanley Rigaud, Vice President of the Miami-Dade Beacon Council, and Qunyatta Warren, the manager of the Little Haiti Cultural Complex.
Guerda Nicolas, cofounder and president of the Ayiti Community Trust, called for further collaboration between the federal agency and Haitian community members in South Florida.
“The United States has to be a better ally to Haiti,” he said. “There is a direct line between what happens here and the pain suffered in Haiti.”