‘This is the worst humanitarian crisis that I’ve seen’: Local aid workers race to help as Haiti lurches toward anarchy
Boston Globe
By Adam Piore Globe Staff,
Updated March 24, 2024
Fritznel Pierre was traveling in Washington, D.C., earlier in March, when his 10-year-old son called him from Port-au-Prince.
“Papa, Papa, we’re on the streets — we’re on the streets!” his son cried, explaining that armed gangs had set the police station near their home on fire, forcing them to flee. “We don’t know where to go.”
Pierre, who runs the Port-au-Prince-based Committee for Peace and Development of Haiti, had flown to Washington to speak to a regional human rights body about the 1,375 victims of sexual violence he’d documented as part of a three-year study conducted by his small human rights organization.
But on Feb. 29, three days into the weeklong trip, his hometown was plunged into anarchy, when armed gangs launched a series of coordinated attacks, shutting down the airport and ports, attacking hospitals and police stations, rampaging through upscale neighborhoods, and slaughtering innocent civilians.
After talking to his son, Pierre burst into tears.
Unable to return home, Pierre has since decamped to a relative’s home in Hyde Park, part of a small army of aid workers doing what they can to help Haiti amid a series of unprecedented challenges. The current crisis is the culmination of a spiral of gang violence and kidnappings in Haiti that began after the July 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
Today, Port-au-Prince remains wrapped in what some aid workers call a chokehold, its airports and ports shut down, commerce largely frozen, and movement constrained by running gun battles, the threat of kidnappings, and checkpoints across the city. In recent days, gunmen have destroyed one of the nation’s largest prisons, unleashing 4,000 inmates onto the streets, set a major hospital in the city center on fire, and attempted to burn down at least nine police stations.
“Our work hasn’t stopped,” Pierre said. “We’re continuing to accompany women and children who are victims of violence. We’re trying to help them.”
Even for those accustomed to bad news, the current situation represents a new level of chaos, one made worse by the fact there appears to be no end in sight.
“This is the worst humanitarian crisis that I’ve seen — and that’s saying a lot because Haiti has been through a lot,” says Dr. Louise Ivers, an infectious disease expert and chief of global health at Mass General Hospital, who has been working in Haiti for 24 years. “It’s devastating.”
Though the 2010 earthquake caused massive loss of life, she notes, “at least we knew that help was arriving or help was on the way.” This crisis, she said, is different.
With the airports and ports closed, getting goods and people in and out of the country is “essentially impossible,” as is moving within the country, because of the sheer number of roadblocks and attacks on travelers.
“Movement has been a problem for a number of months in Haiti, but there were pockets of time when it was safe to move people around,” said Dr. Sheila Davis, chief executive of Partners In Health, the Boston-based international nonprofit cofounded by the late Paul Farmer. “But now there’s been no windows to do that, which is the problem.”
At the 350-bed Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, which Partners in Health helped build after the 2010 earthquake, scores of staffers and medical students who would normally make the 45-minute drive back to the capital have remained on site for three weeks, Davis said. Many are sleeping on cots in a nearby town or in the hospital itself. The situation is similar at another PIH hospital in Saint Marc, 50 miles north of Port-au-Prince. Davis worries how long they can hold out.
At least one senior member of the Mirebalais hospital was run out of his home by gang members, fleeing with his family and leaving everything except his passport and computer. (He continues to treat patients and train residents, according to a spokeswoman).
“I think the long-term stress on people living and working in a conflict zone at this point can’t be over estimated,” Davis said.
Of more immediate concern is the inability to deliver supplies, many of which remain stranded at Haiti’s main port. Even before the 2010 earthquake, only about a quarter of the population had access to a functional power grid, which is why all hospitals rely on diesel-powered generators, to power everything from operating rooms to machines that monitor and help premature babies’ breath. Without resupply, the fuel to power those generators is beginning to run perilously low.
To preserve diesel, PHI’s hospitals have cancelled elective procedures, delayed care whenever possible, and moved patients closer together to shut down areas of the hospital.
They have prioritized essential procedures such as C-sections and urgent operations for victims of motor vehicle accidents and gunshots. Workers have attempted to procure diesel locally, but prices have doubled.
Dr. Shada Rouhani, an emergency physician and director of emergency care and disaster preparedness and response for Partners in Health, said her team in Boston has been in daily communication with staff in Haiti, which have begun inventorying food, IV fluids, and other essential supplies. They have been discussing areas where they can substitute different medications. Some medications, such as antibiotics, are running low.
Ivers worries the situation is ripe for an epidemic. She notes that even before the current crisis, Haiti was in the grip of a devastating cholera outbreak, with about 80,000 cases reported over the past year and about 5,000 deaths. Already, over the last two years, 13 of the 14 technicians who staffed the cholera research program Ivers runs have left the country — part of a massive exodus that has decimated the health care sector.
And it’s likely to get worse if the current situation drags on. In Port-au-Prince, she notes, most people don’t have drinking water in their houses and rely on water trucks that move through neighborhoods selling purified water. Now that these trucks can’t get around, some residents are drinking from unsanitary sources. The situation is also likely to displace many more people, and a survey Ivers has been working on revealed more than half of them lacked access to clean drinking water.
Davis worries about the long-term impact of the crisis.
“People aren’t getting their blood pressure medications. People aren’t being evaluated for routine chronic diseases that can become emergencies,” she said.
“When there’s an earthquake, there’s a moment in time and then that’s like day one. And then you look at recovery. We are not out of day one yet.”
For those devoted to Haiti, there is little choice but to press on.
Pierre said his family was able to return home. He spends his mornings speaking with staffers and uses WhatsApp to pass messages of resilience and support to a youth network while planning programs that will resume when things return to normal. With little money, he rarely goes outside. Work is all he has to sustain himself. But there are many days when it is not enough.
“I’m devastated, really, really sorrowful and very worried about my family,” he said.
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John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org