The Seguin road is attracting more and more passengers fleeing gang violence on National Route 2 linking Port-au-Prince to Les Cayes, but its deplorable state poses many risks
In Kenscoff, a commune perched 1,500 meters above Port-au-Prince, there is a road that leads to Seguin, a small village of several thousand inhabitants located about three hours from Jacmel by motorbike, and almost half a day on foot.
But if Seguin is in the news, it is above all because it is the shortest passage leading to the districts of Jacmel, Cayes-Jacmel, Marigot… and to the Grand Sud in general. This elevated path crosses a mountain canyon to connect the departments of the West and the South-East.
A motorcyclist carries three children with difficulty on the perilous road to Seguin, in August 2024. | © Jean Feguens Regala/AyiboPost
Since the southern entrance to the capital has been under the total control of armed gangs, the Seguin road has become increasingly busy. This traffic comes with its risks: accidents are very frequent because of the deplorable state of the road.
“We have lost count of the number of motorcycles that have crashed there or ended up at the bottom of the cliff,” Kendy, a motorcycle taxi driver who says he has been visiting Seguin for two decades now, told AyiboPost.
Two motorcyclists collide while climbing the hill commonly called Pierre Paul on the road to Kenscoff.
Added to this is the absence of any hospital centre in this locality. “Residents go to the hospital when they have no other choice,” confides Alte Adrien, CASEC of Nouvelle Touraine, the first communal section of Kenscoff. “They always wait until their case is serious enough to require the intervention of a doctor. At that point, if the person can sit up, they are taken to Fermathe on a motorbike. Otherwise, they are transported on an improvised stretcher,” he explains.
Men carry a coffin in the rain on the perilous road to Seguin in August 2024.
The bodies are also transported on motorcycles. The difference is that they are wrapped in pieces of metal to prevent the bodies from sliding.
The people of Seguin do not go to great lengths for their dead. They bury them within 48 hours of their death. This is further reinforced by the fact that there is no morgue in the town. Instead, there are shops where coffins are sold like hotcakes.
Another rather profitable activity, in addition to the sale of coffins, is the traffic carried out exclusively by motorcycle drivers. The latter transport people, but above all goods.
Because before being an escape route for other members of the population, the road from Kenscoff to Seguin is a commercial stretch long prized by peasants. Thus, for a trip from Ca Jacques to Pétion-ville, Kendy says he receives 5,000 gourdes for three bags of provisions.
Motorcyclists get help from pedestrians to climb the rocky slopes under the curious gaze of local residents, on the road to Seguin, in August 2024.
A “madan sara” catching her breath along this endless pile of stones reports that she had to pay another driver almost 7,500 gourdes to agree to transport her merchandise to Pétion-ville.
Drivers justify their exorbitant prices by the poor condition of the road. “There are too many cliffs,” one of them points out, “which means we risk our lives by taking this road every day.”
A motorcyclist struggles up the road to Seguin.
Faced with this difficult reality, Alte Adrien considers that taking the road to Seguin is a real obstacle course. Especially at Ca Jacques, a hill that, still passing through Seguin, leads to Jacmel. It is at this level that we find the markers that delimit the West from the South-East. It is also the most dangerous part of the route, because the slightest driving error can lead to an accident.
Alte Adrien, CASEC of New Touraine, first communal section of Kenscoff.
When the national penitentiary was stormed by gangs in March 2024, CASEC Adrien says that prisoners came to settle at Ca Jacques to rob passers-by. “It was the members of the population who, he says, stood up to them until they got rid of them.”
Because, Alte Adrien explains, the absence of police in the area forces residents to fight insecurity alone. Over a distance of nearly 50 kilometers, from the Kenscoff police station to Peredo, a town in the commune of Marigot, AyiboPost did not notice any police officers on Thursday, August 15, 2024.
Read also: La Gonâve creates its own police force, with weapons of unknown origin
Due to lack of means, traders therefore carry their enormous baskets of vegetables on their heads. Drenched in sweat, breathing heavily and their features drawn with fatigue, those who cannot carry their loads themselves leave them to their horses or donkeys.
A young man carries a bag of groceries.
But whether they decide to pay or not, there are consequences. In order to hope for a minimum profit, merchants who agree to take a motorbike increase the prices of their products at the market. Those who do not have the necessary sum to pay a driver are often forced to watch their products wither before their eyes.
On Thursday, August 15, AyiboPost noted a huge food waste in Ca Jacques. Many products were rotting due to the lack of roads to transport them.
A man shows how peppers are wasted due to transportation difficulties caused by poor road conditions, August 2024.
Alte Adrien points out that their region is one of the main market gardening areas in the country. “We produce a lot of vegetables,” he says, “and many other regions depend on us for supplies.”
In this sense, the politician, without any real power in the face of circumstances, asks the state authorities to consider the need to build the Seguin road.
According to several residents, this road almost did not exist before the governance of the late President René Préval. “It was he who started the work to trace it,” some report.
But the road construction never came to fruition. On the contrary, it was the locals who undertook to carry out the work themselves to improve the stretch of road. Posted at different locations, men filled the holes with rocks collected here and there. They could be found over ten or twenty kilometres travelled. There was no pre-established distance. But the fact is that they had practically set up toll booths for this purpose.
One of the toll stations set up by local residents on the Seguin road in August 2024.
AyiboPost crossed up to fifteen of them for this report. Each time, you have to pay between 100 and 300 gourdes to have the right of passage.
In addition to a police presence that he considers necessary, Alte Adrien therefore pleads in favor of the construction of the road from Kenscoff to Seguin. Because, with a road in good condition, he is convinced, “the other infrastructures will follow.”
Par Jean Feguens Regala & Rebecca Bruny
Cover image: Pedestrians help a motorcyclist up the slopes near the cliffs on the road to Seguin, August 2024. | © Jean Feguens Regala/AyiboPost
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