MSF PRESS RELEASE
HAITI : MSF TEAMS FIND VILLAGES COMPLETELY FLOODED AND POPULATION STRANDED WITH NO HELP, ONE MONTH AFTER CYCLONES
Port-au-Prince, 3 October 2008. A month after the last cyclones hit Haiti, Médecins Sans Frontières medical teams have found a whole village completely submerged and its 2,400 inhabitants stranded with no help.
On Tuesday, 30 September, the teams managed to reach Mamont, a set of villages southeast of Gonaives in the Artibonite region, with an original population of about 17 000 people that had been totally isolated for the last four weeks. They found the village still partially submerged with water spilling over from a lake lately formed by the tropical storms. The population is cut from all major towns, the road being also immersed by the lake. The population has been without clean water, sufficient food or medical care for weeks.
The MSF teams are currently providing assistance to these people and calls for other organisations to assist as quickly as possible. Although international attention has largely moved on from the emergency in Haiti, the example of the town of Mamont shows that emergency assistance remains critical for some parts of the country.
In the Gonaives area, concrete measures for getting the victims of the cyclones back on their feet are slow to materialise; there remains a lack of access to clean water, problems with sanitation, and a shortage of the most basic goods.
There is the risk of diseases spreading and MSF is worried about the repeated expulsions of displaced people from places where they found temporary shelter. For several days the authorities have been pushing for the evacuation of classrooms in before the start of the new school term on Monday, 6 October. The situation is similar in churches, where congregations want to clean their building, resume their worship and are pushing those sheltering inside to leave.
The cathedral in Gonaives, where more then 200 people found refuge, was emptied two weeks ago; some of the displaced moved to a camp of 65 tents in Praville, where conditions are unacceptable. In the area of K-soleil, more than 800 people were evicted from their shelter and had no option than to camp in their ravaged houses or sleep under a piece of cardboard. People who were asked to leave the Church of the Christian Union, numbering some 500 following the floods, had to relocate to the university where now over 200 of them remain without even minimal hygiene facilities. And as the Parc Vincent area, heavily affected by the disaster, is gradually being cleaned up, large numbers of families will find themselves in a few days with no choice but to sleep in the street after being forced out of their shelters.
Today, hundreds of families are left without a place to stay and without any means to rebuild their lives, as neither the authorities nor international organisations present in Gonaives have provided alternative shelter.
MSF emergency intervention in Haiti
MSF has recently opened an 80-bed hospital in the North of Gonaïves in collaboration with the Health and Population Ministry. This structure is the only one in the whole region that can respond to emergencies, obstetric and pediatric services in this town of 300 000 inhabitants, devastated by the recent hurricanes and the tropical storms.
During the first 5 days, this structure has already received 108 patients in the emergency room and performed 19 deliveries, as well as 8 minor and 1 major surgery interventions. In total 40 people have been hospitalized.
In parallel with our activities in the hospital, MSF continues working in order to improve access to drinking water for the population, but the situation remains precarious in Gonaïves. Every three days, the team chlorinates 1000 cubic meters of water and together with other organizations they truck out 350 cubic meters daily for distribution to the communities. In total, since the 8th of September we could distribute more than 5700 cubic meters. This represents the largest part of the water that is distributed at present. We aim at having a capacity of 1000 m3 a day.
Our mobile medical teams continue to travel by car around town and by helicopter in its surroundings to provide assistance to the most vulnerable people in their temporary shelters in Gonaïves or the nearby isolated villages. Since the 12th of September our teams could perform more than 1150 consultations in their mobile clinics.
Last week our teams left the health center of Raboteau, now fully managed by the Health and Population Ministry, after performing 2326 consultations in 20 days.
MSF teams have also assessed needs in the northwest of Haiti, in the central Artibonite region, and in the south of the country. While interventions are not currently required in the areas visited, the teams have provided some health structures with drugs and materials and have carried out medical consultations. A nutritional surveillance system has also been established in the northwest region and assessments have been carried out in the northeast and southeast areas of the country in relation to food insecurity.
For more information, please contact Olivia Blanchard on 07770 235 740 or 0207 0670 4217.