Haiti: The Rain Keeps Coming

May 6, 2011 TransAfrica Forum is alarmed about the conditions of Haiti’s earthquake survivors at the onset of the rainy season in Haiti. Almost 700,000 people remain internally displaced in officially recognized IDP camps following the January 2010 earthquake. Hundreds of thousands of additional people remain in informal settlements, in neighborhoods, in unsafe housing, and with friends and family. Tarps and tents distributed in the months after the quake are now fraying or destroyed after more than a year of exposure to the tropical sun, wind and rain. For people made homeless by the earthquake, lack of secure housing is compounded by the daily struggle to access basic water and sanitation services.

A short wind and rainstorm at the end of April again confirmed how unstable and insecure housing conditions are. According to official reports, over 5,000 tents, still the most prevalent housing option for those internally displaced, were destroyed. In addition, numerous camps reported shelters being damaged and in some circumstances, effects of the storm so severe that camp residents were forced to leave. One camp was completely flooded, and all tents and residents’ belongings lost.

The United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that only 19% of resources have been made available for funding requests made for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services. Additionally, scant numbers of safe housing options have been funded or created to date. The Haiti shelter cluster estimates that as of March 2011, only 56,000 t-shelters (temporary shelters) and 1,900 permanent houses had been completed. Though the building of t-shelters has increased in recent months, OCHA estimates that only 8% of the $92 million dollars required for shelter and non-food items have been funded.

The overwhelming majority of Haitians who lost their homes during the earthquake remain unprotected now, in the midst of the rainy season.

In these same conditions—without reliable water and sanitation services or housing—Haiti is approaching the next hurricane season. The plastic tarps, tents and bed sheets that hundreds of thousands of people remain under are no match for tropical winds and rain, not to mention the more severe storms predicted for later this year. In addition, health experts worry that although cholera cases had stabilized; the number of patients is spiking again with the return of rainy weather, and any slow down was just a sign that the epidemic is taking its natural course.

Recent statistics from the Ministry of Public Health in Haiti estimate that since the first case was reported last October, there have been 287,742 cases of cholera including 4,888 deaths. As rain and the incidence of standing water increases, water and sanitation services in camps, as well as funding for cholera treatment centers, is beginning to dry up. Resources must be supplied to people living in and around camps immediately but expeditious development of basic infrastructure including water filtration systems and sanitation solutions is integral to addressing the long-term impact of cholera in Haiti.

Read this press release in Creole.