Many of the victims lived in camps, after being forced to flee gang violence
A violent gang attack in Bois Verna risked costing him his life when Arilus fled from the Marie-Jeanne high school in the area to crash land at the Citizen Protection Office (OPC) in Bourdon, March 9, 2024 .
The OPC should be “the sentinel of human rights”, according to the carpenter. “I came here because it is part of my inalienable rights,” declares the man who reports having abandoned his house in Carrefour-Feuilles last year after a gang attack.
A few hours after these declarations, police arrived and vigorously expelled Arilus, as well as dozens of other displaced victims, to the OPC, a state institution dedicated to the defense of human rights, notes AyiboPost.
A man welcomes a lady and invites her to take refuge at the OPC premises, March 9, 2024.
Displaced people fleeing gang violence in the lower part of the city barely arrive in the OPC courtyard to find refuge, on March 9, 2024.
Around 25,000 people were displaced by attacks of rare violence initiated against state institutions by bandits on February 29, 2024, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
These new displaced victims have settled in fourteen other sites, eleven of which are already overcrowded, according to the IOM.
Overcrowded or not, state institutions are not opening their arms wide to welcome the victims.
At the Institute of Social Welfare and Research (IBESR), the victims were chased away with bullets by unidentified individuals, according to the findings of an AyiboPost journalist present on the scene at the time of the events. March 9. In the meantime, part of the IBESR has been vandalized. “We cannot find certain files,” Thermilus, an employee, who came to collect files left in bulk at the institution, told AyiboPost.
View of the entrance to the Institute of Social Welfare and Research (IBESR) during the arrival of victims on March 9, 2024.
Many of the victims lived in camps, having been forced to flee gang violence.
This is the case of Gérald, a former resident of Carrefour-Feuilles until November 2022. Expelled from his home by the fury of the gangs, he found refuge for nine months in a center in Bécassine before landing in Champ- Of March.
Recent attacks on police institutions in the area push Gérald to take shelter in the premises of the Applied Linguistics Faculty (FLA), an entity of the State University of Haiti (UEH).
The scene at the entrance to the Faculty of Applied Linguistics (FLA) during the arrival of displaced victims on March 9, 2024.
In a note made public on March 11, the UEH rectorate denounces “the storming” of the FLA. Highlighting the material damage that this could cause, the institution asks the authorities to take the necessary measures to rehouse these people and thus protect the integrity of the space of the university institution.
According to the vice-president of the camp management committee, Nono David, the space accommodates more than a thousand people. Most of them come from camps previously set up near Marché Salomon and Champ-de-Mars. Other refugees continue to join them, reports Nono David. Which poses a risk of increased promiscuity, explains the committee member.
A woman sleeps on boxes and pieces of sheets in a room at the Faculty of Applied Linguistics (FLA) on March 9, 2024, while two others take care of their children.
Since the day after the gang attack on the National Penitentiary on March 2, 2024, more than a hundred victims have found refuge at the Ministry of Communication. The repression has not yet caught up with them, but, according to an official, the center suffers from a severe lack of drinking water.
Displaced victims at the Ministry of Communication in Port-au-Prince, interviewed by journalists, March 9, 2024.
Sitting on a small stool in the corner of a large ministry room, Ghislaine, her back bent under the weight of her 70 years, can barely contain her grief. Armed bandits burned her residence a few meters from Fort Samedi in Carrefour-Feuilles in 2023. She went to the Lycée Fritz Pierre-Louis before settling down at the ministry. “In addition to having lost everything, I suffer from rheumatism,” she told AyiboPost. These are pieces of fabric that benefactors gave us that serve as a blanket here.
A view of the facade of the Ministry of Communication on March 9, 2024, where displaced victims are settling.
On the rear balcony of the ministry, Marilyna Léon, visibly in her fifties, weakly marks her steps. Mother of five children, Léon’s journey began in November 2023 when heavily armed individuals ransacked and burned down her house in Caridad, a town in Carrefour-Feuilles. Having since taken refuge in the premises of the Fritz Pierre Louis high school, she will have to flee again on Sunday March 3 because of the gang attacks. “I lost my house and my small business,” says Léon. “For now, I live as the days go by.”
This woman watches her co-victims at the Ministry of Communication express their frustration, while saying she is hungry, ignoring journalists’ questions, March 9, 2024.
Sitting on a step of the ministry staircase, Nancy Mézylas breastfeeds a four-month-old baby, swaddled in a piece of second-hand linen. The mother of three also left the Fritz Pierre-Louis high school where she had taken shelter after the bandits burned down her home on rue Joseph Janvier in Port-au-Prince. “The situation is chaotic for us,” says Mézylas. I can barely make ends meet.”
On March 9, 2024, a young woman leaves the courtyard of the Ministry of Communication holding an infant.
A young woman leaves the courtyard of the Ministry of Communication on March 9, 2024, carrying a baby.
Four o’clock in the afternoon, Monday March 11, 2024, the premises of the Ministry of Communication resemble a vast open-air market. Vendors, behind their stalls, sell fried foods that they take, at arm’s length, from cauldrons blackened by the flames. In the neighborhood, a few people are standing, wringing out clothes in a laundry area. The cluttered rooms are filled with displaced people who sleep on the floor, alongside a few makeshift suitcases.
A view of the courtyard of the Ministry of Communication, March 9, 2024, occupied by displaced people fleeing gang violence in the lower part of the city.
Elsewhere in Port-au-Prince, poor hygienic conditions, lack of food and violence constitute the daily lot of people living in the camps, according to testimonies collected on site by AyiboPost.
Walguens Pierre-Jean lived on Avenue Fouchard, where he worked as a painter. During the acts of violence by bandits in this area in August 2023, he lost more than a hundred paintings. The professional first sets up at the Occide Jeanty kiosk, before landing at the Rex Théâtre in September 2023 in the heart of the Champ-de-Mars. The space was partially destroyed during the 2010 earthquake. It houses around 1,068 displaced people, according to Pierre-Jean, vice-president of the management committee of this center. “Living in a cracked building is very risky. We are aware of the danger,” the artist told AyiboPost.
A woman calling herself an artist, used to dancing rara choreographies during carnivals, takes refuge at the Rex Théâtre. She cries, realizing her predicament because of the gangs chasing her from her home.
The space was partially destroyed during the 2010 earthquake. It houses around 1,068 displaced people, according to Pierre-Jean, vice-president of the management committee of this center. “Living in a cracked building is very risky. We are aware of the danger,” the artist told AyiboPost.
Corner at the Rex Theater camp where people displaced by gang violence relieve themselves.
On the sidelines of the latest attacks around the Champ-de-Mars, “we received a first group of 165 people, then another of 70 people,” said the official. The newcomers previously lived on rue Monseigneur Guilloux, rue de l’entreprises, rue de la Réunion or rue Alerte near the Port-au-Prince cemetery.
The sanitary conditions inside and around the Rex are disastrous. “We can’t protect ourselves against the rain,” says Pierre-Jean. The displaced people relieve themselves around the building. There are no showers for women to bathe discreetly.”
A view of part of the Rex Theater camp where displaced victims are setting up tents.
Since Saturday March 9, most of the occupants of the Rex Theater have received hot meals from the World Food Program (WFP).
At the Lycée Marie Jeanne de Bois Verna, “the situation is chaotic,” laments John Élysée, head of this camp. Nearly 3,000 people live there without medicine, drinking water or electricity, according to Élysée. “Since November 2023, people have not received any food assistance,” says the official. “[Most] live by begging.”
A view of the conditions in which people displaced by gang violence find themselves at Lycée Marie Jeanne on March 9, 2024
An overview of the conditions in which people seeking refuge find themselves at Lycée Marie Jeanne on March 9, 2024.
At the Lycée des Jeunes Filles located on rue Jean Paul II, residents have not received any assistance since December 2023, according to the head of security of this camp, Elysée Jean-Pierre.
After the gang raids on March 2, 2024, 730 new people joined the space. “Detonations and stray bullets are our biggest worry,” says Jean Pierre. At high school, since November 2023, Chantal Paris, a lady in her fifties, explains in a broken voice how armed bandits attacked and looted her small business selling food products at Impasse Eddy. At three o’clock in the afternoon, this Monday, March 11, Paris and other people are busy eating their first meal of the day. In the roof made of sheet metal, the bullet holes are visible.
At high school, since November 2023, Chantal Paris, a lady in her fifties, explains in a broken voice how armed bandits attacked and looted her small business selling food products at Impasse Eddy. At three o’clock in the afternoon, this Monday, March 11, Paris and her neighboors are busy eating their first meal of the day. In the roof made of sheet metal, the bullet holes are visible.
A view of part of the Rex Theater camp where displaced people are setting up tents.
Women are paying a heavy price for the disastrous situation in the camps. For example, the tents at the Rex theater offer minimal protection to occupants from bad weather. “We lack privacy here,” complains one lady. According to the latter, “we have no space to carry out tasks as basic as taking a bath. In addition, the quality of the water that we use for our personal and personal hygiene is not of good quality.” Reportedly, many women at the center suffer from itchy skin and other symptoms of vaginal infections.
View of the interior of a tent at the Rex Théâtre on March 9, 2024.
The same observation was made in the premises of the Antenor Firmin high school where the number of people who found refuge there increased from 3,000 to more than 4,000 people, according to Fernando, a member of the camp managing committee. “Many children have fever, itchy skin, and ringworm on the head,” says the former resident of Savane Pistache.
A room at the Faculty of Linguistics in P-au-P was transformed into a bedroom to accommodate more than a dozen of people o n March 9, 2024.
Marie Thérèse Delimar, mother of six children, including five girls, says she encountered difficulties finding a sanitary napkin for one of her daughters who had just had her first period. Fearing for the privacy and physical integrity of his daughters, Delimar claims to sleep with his eyes open. “At bedtime in the evening, I place an assortment of objects resistant enough to prevent any intrusion in front of the entrance,” she explains.
A child, whose parents are taking refuge in the FLA premises, is writing, sitting on a faculty chair, on March 9, 2024.
At the Ministry of Culture and Communication, Alexandre Erickson, a camp manager, fears cases of harassment and sexual violence. According to him, several complaints and remarks have been reported in this regard by women. “The situation is beyond me,” the manager told AyiboPost. “I am appealing for help because women and girls here are exposed to cases of sexual assault every day.”
View of the interior of a tent at the Rex Théâtre on March 9, 2024.
Around fifteen pregnant women and nearly six mothers of infants find shelter at the ministry, an inadequate environment, both in terms of health standards and suitable hygienic facilities.
By Rolph Louis-Jeune, Junior Legrand, Lucnise Duquereste, Wethzer Piercin et Jean Feguens Gifts
Cover image: A view of the courtyard of the Ministry of Communication, March 9, 2024, occupied by displaced people fleeing gang violence in the lower part of the city.| © Jean Feguens Regala/AyiboPost
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