Boris Loumagne, major reporter for franceinfo, is one of the few journalists to have visited Haiti, at the site of the epicenter of the earthquake, a few days after August 14. A balance sheet whose provisional goes on and on: 2,200 dead, 12,000 injured and a million people who will suffer from severe famine this winter. This alarmist forecast is published this weekend by the FAO.
The 7.2 magnitude earthquake in the south-east of the country around Les Cayes destroyed agricultural production and everything that organizes food distribution. Infrastructure such as roads, storage sheds, markets. In a synthesis document published by FAO and written by UN agencies and international NGOs, nearly a million people “should be in a situation of severe food insecurity (phase 3 or more on a scale of 5) between September and February 2022, including 320,000 in phase 4 (emergency)”.
The humanitarian emergency is also agricultural. Need for seeds, equipment, livestock. Repair destroyed or deteriorated infrastructure. The FAO estimates at 20 million the cost of aid that could revive 32,000 rural families around the restoration of infrastructure.
But the main project remains that of reconstruction. The weakened houses continue to collapse, even today, without there being aftershocks. And the question of “how to rebuild “ is at the heart of the conversations: sheets and light materials vulnerable to hurricanes OR solid houses that bury entire families when the earth trembles? And who pays? 53,000 houses completely destroyed, nearly 20% of schools razed.
Rather well coordinated, the few NGOs are not numerous enough and the journalists who could tell what is going on here have their eyes turned to Afghanistan. What surprises Boris Loumagne, major reporter for franceinfo, when he lands in Port-au-Prince, in fact the image he retains is that of these Haitians who do nothing and who wait. They have no more work, no more roofs, no material to rebuild themselves. There is nothing to do. You have to wait and try to get a place in an unsanitary refugee camp, and benefit from a plate from the world food program.
Boris Loumagne’s report published on August 20 on franceinfo.
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It took Boris Loumagne a 20-hour drive to get back to the epicendre area. Rescuers must go to the most remote rural areas on the back of a mule. Health infrastructure is failing: three doctors per 10,000 inhabitants, six times less than in the neighboring Dominican Republic. The bankrupt state is weakened by the political crisis.
The Haitians understood well that they could only count on themselves or on foreign aid. So they watch for the arrival of planes and when Boris Loumagne’s microphone appears, they throw themselves on it to tell about their destitution. The reporter becomes the spokesperson for their pain, and the radio, this medium they love so much, the place where the SOS of Haitians in distress launch out.