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The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, July 14, 2024, p. 19
Port-au-Prince, a year and a half ago, Philomene Dayiti had to flee gangs and take refuge in a church – converted into a camp for internally displaced persons – in Port-au-Prince. Her anguish is that of hundreds of thousands of Haitians in a country subjected to the violence of armed gangs.
I would like to go home, find a place to rest. I can’t stay here forever.this woman tells AFP.
Dayiti, 65, lived in Bas-Delmas, a dangerous commune in the capital’s metropolitan area, where she survived by selling goods on the street. When gang clashes forced her to flee her neighborhood, she found refuge at the Primitive International Church, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.
The small courtyard of the place has become an improvised camp where 800 people are crammed together, keeping their belongings hanging on the walls or on clotheslines.
Like Dayiti, many Haitians have fled their homes for fear of the gangs, which have been active in the country for years and have stepped up their actions since February, when the gangs launched coordinated attacks against key points in the capital, in what was interpreted as a provocation against the then Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, who ended up resigning and transitional authorities assumed power with a monumental task ahead of them.
Eighty percent of Port-au-Prince is in the hands of gangs, who are accused of murder, rape, looting and kidnapping. And according to the International Organization for Migration, there are nearly 600,000 internally displaced people on the island.
Roberto, who lived in a small community in Croix-Des-Bouquets, near the capital, also found refuge in the church.
On the morning of January 21, 2023, while we were busy with our daily chores, we heard several gunshotssays the father of two teenagers. “Then we saw armed bandits invading the area. They told us to remain calm and that the neighbourhood was under their control.
Among bullets, it is not our place
They shot all night and when we saw that, as we are good parents, we understood that this was no longer our place.says.
Roberto and his family left secretly without taking any extra clothes. They wanted to avoid being used as human shields by gang members in the event of a police operation, a common practice according to several witnesses. They destroyed all my possessions. I had a car, a shop. I have nothing left, I have fallen to the bottom.Roberto laments.
The pastor of the early international Church, Meus Lotaire, recognizes that coexistence among displaced people is not always easy, because It takes a lot of effort to manage all these people who come from different places. and they have to share a limited space, says the 61-year-old. “We have all kinds of problems, such as insufficient bathrooms.
There are so many people here (…), it’s crowdedhe says. Sometimes They can’t breathe.
The NGO Alima, with its mobile medical units, is the one that offers them health support, since several hospitals have had to close or reduce their activities due to gang violence.